


an indecent proposal

by rosytonics



Category: IT (Movies - Muschietti), IT - Stephen King
Genre: Character Study, Eddie Kaspbrak is a Mess, Fluff, M/M, Marriage Proposal, Relationship Study, Richie Tozier is a Mess, Romantic Comedy, proposal gone wrong, these two are the worst and i love them more than anything
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-04
Updated: 2020-04-04
Packaged: 2021-02-27 21:42:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 21,792
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22552711
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rosytonics/pseuds/rosytonics
Summary: Eddie’s chances of snagging a fiancé by the end the week are good. He leaves the jeweler’s with a ring in his pocket, two grand missing from his bank account, and a plan that couldn’t possibly go wrong.(SPOILER ALERT: it goes wrong)
Relationships: (on the side!), Eddie Kaspbrak/Richie Tozier, Patricia Blum Uris/Stanley Uris
Comments: 38
Kudos: 146





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> (ㆁᴗㆁ✿) HELLO.... 
> 
> this fic took me, um, several months to write and is over 40 pages!! this is the first time i've ever finished a multi-chapter fic so i am VERY proud of myself! i hope you guys love reading it as much as i loved writing it! 
> 
> dedicated to tuesday, the love of my life who kept me chugging along with this fic!! 
> 
> ✿ find me on tumblr @sagewife! requests are currently open!

Statistically, this has a pretty high chance of working out. 

Eddie thinks about the numbers as he peruses through the glass-covered cases, carefully analyzing the contents inside. As he inspects the rows and rows of rings, ranging from simple and elegant to quirky and intricate (ranging in price from pricy to  _ stupidly  _ pricy), he goes over the variables. 

It’s been eight weeks since he and Richie got into an argument about something important. They bickered last week about the dishwasher (  _ “You load it from the back, asshole! Plates on the bottom, bowls on the top!” “Why does it even matter  _ **_how_ ** _ I load it? It’s all getting clean!” “It’s about the  _ **_aerodynamics_ ** _!” “They’re  _ **_dishes_ ** _!” _ ) but they started laughing halfway through and ended up fucking each other silly against the counter, so that doesn’t really count. So. Eight weeks. 

They’ve been together for nine months ( _ “Ten months,”  _ Richie always argues, and then they get to bitching about the numbers instead of the dishes or the laundry, and then they fuck each other silly again). Eddie showed up in Los Angeles three weeks after Derry with nothing but a suitcase filled with hastily folded clothes, a ring-free right hand, and ridiculously high hopes. He’d looked up at Richie with the puppy-dog eyes that he’d practiced in the bathroom during his six hour flight from JFK to LAX, fiddled with his sleeve, and asked to come inside. 

Richie let him come inside. 

And then Richie let him  _ come inside _ . 

After that, it didn’t take long for the two of them to find a groove—especially considering the fact that they can’t fucking stand each other. They fell into an easy routine, and now they do all that stupid domestic shit like wearing each other’s clothes and bickering at the grocery store about the nutritional benefits of Pop-Tarts. (There aren’t any, but Eddie’s so whipped that all he can do now is stare at the box with disgust whenever he opens the pantry.) But Richie makes him coffee and knows to use Eddie’s favorite mug, and Eddie can always find Richie’s keys. He cleans Richie’s glasses, and Richie straightens his ties before work. They pick at each other’s hair and clothes like monkeys in a tree, and sleep nestled together like spoons in a drawer; Eddie is like a teaspoon, and Richie is a gangly soup ladle, which made it a little awkward at first, but Eddie likes being able to brush Richie’s hair aside and kiss the back of his neck in the middle of the night. 

They have designated movie nights on Thursdays. 

Eddie kills the spiders in the shower with hairspray and a tissue. 

Richie takes naps on Eddie’s side of the bed when he’s not around. 

They know each other, inside and out, outside and in, the way peanut butter knows jelly and bacon knows eggs. They know each other in a cosmic way too, the way the sun knows the moon and the way the waves know the shore. They know each other the way the French know how to make bread, and the way Italians know how to make bread, and why the fuck is everyone so good at making bread? 

Myra never let Eddie eat bread. She said he had a gluten allergy, and because the words felt familiar, he believed her.

Richie brings bagels to his office whenever they’re running late and forget breakfast. And he should, because it’s usually Richie’s fault that he’s late anyway—sometimes they spend the morning bickering, and other times he drops his head down into the crook of Eddie’s shoulder and kisses his neck, and sleepily requests a quickie in the shower. Or on the couch. Or against the kitchen counter. 

Variable number three: Eddie has never enjoyed living with someone until now. He’s never put his feet in someone’s lap while watching TV, or stared at someone as they brushed their teeth and suddenly felt overwhelmed with the need to kiss them. No one has ever snuck up behind him and grabbed his ass while he washed the dishes, or kissed him on the cheek while he folded laundry. He’s never been able to walk in after a long, tiring day, and have someone give him exactly what he needs without him even having to ask for it. Until now. 

Richie doesn’t have to remind him to say  _ I love you _ . Eddie just says it without even thinking. He says it when Richie nudges his leg under the table at brunch, and he says it when Richie kisses his hand while he’s driving, and sometimes he says it for no reason at all, just because he wants to. 

And Richie says it, too, and he says it at the stupidest times. He says it over dinner when he reaches over and steals Eddie’s garlic bread from his plate, folds it in half, and shoves it into his mouth. He says it when they’re watching old sci-fi double features while he chucks a piece of popcorn at Eddie’s face. When he’s outside at the Shell station, filling the car with petrol, Richie breathes onto the window and writes it into the condensation on the glass. 

The number thirty six takes Eddie’s chances of getting an enthusiastic _yes_ from good to great. Thirty six. Richie fixates on it sometimes, _Rain Man_ style. He uses it in his hyperboles ( _“Did you see that?! There had to be like, thirty six dogs!”_ Ten. There were ten. ), and when he makes fun of Eddie’s job ( _“You’re thirty six percent more likely to get some ass tonight if you just”—_ ), and his drunken requests ( _“I want thirty six chocobo supremes from Taco Bell right now.” “Taco Bell will make you fat, and chocobo supremes don’t even fucking_ ** _exist_** _.”_ ). Sometimes he tackles Eddie onto the couch and gives him thirty six kisses, and then pretends that he wasn’t counting. 

Last time they had a fight over something  _ important— _ one that left them in tears and sleeping separately rather than fucked out and slightly embarrassed—Richie sent thirty six roses to Eddie’s office, with a card that said  _ I’m sorry. I love you.  _ thirty six times. 

Eddie finally asked him about it after they made up, rubbing Richie’s naked back and tracing circles into his shoulder. 

(  _ “What’s the deal with you and thirty six?”  _

_ “September first, 1981.”  _

_ “What? Did you whack your head on the headboard, or something?”  _

_ “No, dummy. That’s the day we met. In kindergarten. Thirty six years ago.”  _ ) 

Richie didn’t have to say anything after that—and he couldn’t, because Eddie had grabbed him by the scruffy jaw and kissed him senseless. 

Eight weeks since their last blowout fight. 

Nine ( _ “Ten, fuckface.” _ ) months of living together. 

Thirty six years of being madly, deeply, and stupidly in love. 

Eddie’s chances of snagging a fiancé by the end the week are good. He leaves the jeweler’s with a ring in his pocket, two grand missing from his bank account, and a plan that couldn’t possibly go wrong. 


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> welcome back! thank you so much to everyone who dropped kudos and commented!!! (❁´◡`❁) it warms my heart to know that people are having fun reading my work!!! i'm hoping to get the whole fic posted by valentine's day, since it's completely finished! 
> 
> please let me know what you guys think! 
> 
> (trigger warning for brief mention of stan's suicide attempt)

“I swear to God, dude, it’s all gonna go wrong!” 

_ “Can you stop being so dramatic?”  _

Richie groans and tosses his phone onto the couch before following it with his entire body. He grabs a pillow, shoves his face in it, and screams. 

_ “Very mature, Richard.”  _ Stan’s even, steadfast voice crackles through the speaker, and Richie can  _ hear  _ him rolling his eyes. Smug little prick.  _ “Even if you manage to mess it up, there’s no way he’ll say no, because”—  _

“But what if he does?” Richie whines, pulling the pillow away from his face and cramming it into his lap. “What if he doesn’t like the food, and it’s so terrible that it gives him food poisoning, and he says he never wants to see me again because he’s fucking”—He makes an exasperated noise and smacks the pillow— “Shitting out of his mouth and puking out of his ass or something?!” 

_ “First of all, that’s disgusting.”  _ Richie imagines the way Stan’s lips flatten into a thin line when he’s grossed out, the way furrows his brow and has to look away. He’s probably doing a puzzle right now, one of those fifty-thousand piece ones that he’ll frame and hang up in the front hallway when he’s finished.  _ “And second of all, you’ve been to this place tons of times and you’ve never been sick, right? So don’t worry about it. No one’s going to throw up, or—or  _ **_shit out of their mouth_ ** .  _ Okay? _ ” 

Richie frowns but nods almost frantically, sending his hair bouncing in about thirty-six different directions. “Okay, fine. But what if he still says no? Not because something catastrophic happens, but because he just…doesn’t want to get married?” Richie can’t blame him—after ten years with Mommy 2.0, it would make total sense for Eddie to never want to get married again.

_ “He won’t,”  _ Stan promises, trailing off as he probably inspects a new puzzle piece, looking for its home. Richie called him because he’s the smartest, and because he’s his second favorite person on the entire planet. He inspects things from every angle and turns them around until they fit.  _ “And even if he says he’s not ready to get married, that doesn’t mean that things have to change. He’ll still be your partner.”  _

If Eddie doesn’t want to get married, he’ll still come home in the early evening and let Richie kiss him at the door. He’ll still hold Richie’s hand at the dinner table and rub Richie’s leg with his foot. He’ll still wash the dishes and flick soap bubbles at Richie if he tries to help. They’ll still brush their teeth together and keep their toothbrushes in a little mug on the bathroom counter. They’ll still share a bed, and Eddie will still wrap his limbs around Richie and give him tired little kisses until he falls asleep. And in the morning, they’ll still get up and it’ll start all over again. 

They just…won’t be married. 

_ “I can hear you overthinking it, Richie. Don’t. You’ll pull something. _ ” He says it to make Richie laugh, but all he can do is sigh and drag a hand down his face. He pulls off his glasses and rubs his eyes until they itch, and then burn, and then feel swollen and tender. Stan’s breath catches over the phone.  _ “Perfect, _ ” he mutters softly. Puzzle’s done.  _ “Just tell him how you feel. Be honest, and be brave. And then ask him. He’ll say yes.”  _

Richie stops rubbing his eyes and feels around for his phone. He clears the mucus out of his throat (ew) and sighs. “Thanks, Stan…” There’s a hole in his sock, and Richie is suddenly very aware of it. He reaches down and grabs the end of the sock, and tries twisting and turning it on his ankle in an attempt to get the hole to migrate down to the sole of his foot so his toe’s not poking out. “You’re right.” 

_ “I know.”  _

He might not be able to find a lot of faith in himself right now, but he can put his faith in Stan. Richie tilts his head back and shuts his eyelids, and watches lights dance around behind them. 

“I’ll tell you how it goes. Love you.” 

…

“Love you too, Rich.”

Stanley Uris carefully reaches over his recently completed masterpiece for his phone and ends the call. Stepping back and looking things over, he decides that he’s pretty damn proud of himself. It took a few days, but his careful reconstruction of Klimt’s  _ The Kiss _ is finally complete, and ready to be framed and mounted. 

A careful knock on the door pulls his attention towards it. It opens, and Pat peeks into the study with a smile. 

“Is it done?” she asks eagerly. She’s never liked doing the puzzles with him, but she always loves seeing the results. Some evenings, she just sits on the couch with a book and a cup of tea, and watches him work until bedtime. Carefully, as if one misstep could send the puzzle clattering to the ground, she tiptoes into the room. “Oh, honey! It looks gorgeous!” Her arms find their way around Stan’s waist and she rests her chin in the crook of his shoulder. 

Stan rubs her arm gently with the back of his hand. “I’ll pick up a frame tomorrow.” He turns, giving her a kiss on the cheek. He’s kissed her every day since he was a freshman in college, and it never gets old. He doubts it ever will. 

Pat leans into the kiss with a smile and gives him a squeeze before stepping back. Stan turns, catches her by the waist, and pulls her back in. She raises an eyebrow at him delightedly; he doesn’t always get so bold, but it’s been a good day. He’s done with his puzzle, and his best friend is getting married. “Hm.” She reaches for his sweater and plays with his collar. “Was that Richie on the phone? How’s he doing?” 

“He’s doing fine.” Stan watches as she drifts her hand down from his shoulder to his forearm, and then to his elbow. Finally, her fingers stop at his wrist. They’re shaking a little, and she’s looking at him like he’s a desert mirage, a dream too good to be true. He leans in and kisses her forehead. “I’m okay, baby-love,” he promises, and it’s true. He’s okay today. He was okay yesterday. He might not be okay tomorrow, and if he’s not, he’ll tell her, because he tells her everything. The kiss placates her just a little, but her eyes still look unsure, uneasy. Insecure in his promise that he’s not going anywhere. They had to get their bathroom redone. She wouldn’t go into it otherwise.

A breath dances between them. 

The guilt grips him with a thousand teeth. 

He smiles. 

“He’s going to propose.” 

“He’s  _ what?! _ ” The fear and sadness leaves her eyes, replaced by something giddy and bright. Her worries about his delicacy are forgotten, and her hand tightens around his arm. The guilt gnawing at him eases. “Are you kidding?! Stanley, if you’re kidding, I swear to”—Her words get lost in the shuffle as he kisses her. “Stan! That’s not an answer!” 

Stan kisses her again, just because he can’t help himself. It makes her laugh, and she smacks at his chest playfully. 

“Stop it! I want to know!” 

Patty takes her position as an honorary Loser’s Club member very seriously. She’d melted into the group dynamic like she’d always been there, and the group recognized them as two separate, but still closely linked people. They were _ Stan and Pat _ —two rings, like the Olympics logo or a Venn diagram, independent of each other but overlapping in the center, bound for life. 

Richie and Eddie, on the other hand, had always been more of a messy blob, fusing and warping into each other to create a brand new, radioactively obnoxious compound. There was no space between them, no place where they didn’t cross over each other. They were  _ RichieandEddie, EddieandRichie.  _ They never seemed to want the space, either, even when they were kids; they always climbed all over each other, setting themselves off like fireworks just to get the other’s attention. 

They bickered just for a reason to talk to each other, and wrestled and shoved just for an excuse to touch. 

And it drove Stan  _ crazy _ . 

It  _ drives _ Stan crazy. 

It’s been driving him crazy for the past  _ thirty six years.  _

If things were different back then, they probably would’ve been high school honeys. They would’ve walked down the hallways tucked into each other’s arms, and swayed awkwardly on the dance floor at prom. They would’ve gone to the same college, roomed together for all four years. Maybe something would happen—a big fight, or a death in the family, or an instance of public harassment that made them question if they were right for each other. They would’ve spent some difficult time apart, and Stan would’ve had to listen to their tearful confessions over the phone at two in the morning. He would’ve lost sleep about it because  _ they _ were losing sleep about it. And then, in some dramatic climax somewhere public (Stan liked to think it was a bridge, and that it was raining, and that they were soaking wet and screaming at each other), they would kiss and make up, and decide that everything was going to be okay. They’d reset. They’d rebuild. Someone would propose, and it would go comically wrong, but the other would still say yes because  _ why wouldn’t he?  _

The wedding would go wrong too, because their love is a comedy of errors in infinite acts and scenes, but it would be sweet. They’d probably be celebrating their twentieth anniversary soon. 

But things weren’t different back then. Things were the way they were, so  _ EddieandRichie  _ and  _ RichieandEddie  _ were forced to take their time.

But now, after all the hassle, it looks like they’re finally getting their shit together. 

And Pat might be excited, but that’s nothing compared to the  _ relief  _ as the weight of watching them snap and bite at each other for  _ decades _ leaves Stan’s shoulders. 

“I think it’s going to happen on Friday.” Stan thinks for a second, trying to make sense of Richie’s anxious blabbering so he can lay the details out in a coherent timeline. He’s gotten good at that, at translating whatever the fuck goes on in that guy’s head so other people can understand it. “They’re going to some fancy restaurant that they got a reservation at weeks ago, and I guess he’s just going to. Do it.” 

The ring is nice. Not too flashy, but just classy enough to appeal to Eddie’s taste for business casual. It’ll look nice on him, resting on his finger and catching the light whenever he’s getting worked up and does that thing with his hand (A sudden memory.  _ “Have you ever heard of a staph infection?!”  _ ) that always makes Stanley roll his eyes. Maybe he’ll fiddle with it when he’s nervous, twisting it around and rubbing it with the top of his thumb. 

Eventually, it’ll be like Stan and Patty’s rings; it’ll just become a part of him and sometimes he’ll forget he’s even wearing it. 

“That’s so sweet.” Pat’s attention turns to the table and she looks over the details of the puzzle carefully. “But it’s very public—do you think he’ll mind?” 

She and Stan have always been fans of privacy, of slipping by inconspicuously and showing their love to each other with the little details—things like linking arms on walks, or chaste little kisses on the cheek during date nights. No one knows them, and they like it that way. There aren’t cameras following them around, or Buzzfeed quizzes about them, or people leaving weirdly horny comments on their Instagram photos. They’re just another happy couple at the park, or at the Farmer’s Market, or at Temple. 

Unfortunately (or maybe fortunately, because they thrive off of being the center of attention) this is a luxury that Eddie and Richie cannot afford. 

Stan shrugs. “Probably not.” One of the corner pieces on  _ The Kiss  _ looks a little crooked. He adjusts his glasses and leans down, carefully wiggling it back into place. There’s no room for imperfections here—the rest of his life is hectic and chaotic enough, even if it’s begun to slow down since Derry, but this is one of the only things that he has complete and total control over. “I think he’s used to it by now.” 

Stan can’t imagine it. It’s not even his life and he’s not used to it! It still shocks him to glance at the tabloid magazines lined up at the checkout line and see his friends’ faces under some ridiculous headline. ( **_TROUBLE IN PARADISE:_ ** _ Could Whole Foods Meltdown Spell the End of #Reddie?! _ ) It’s still weird to stumble across Richie’s comedy specials while he peruses Netflix, or to see his memoir on the Bestseller’s table at Barnes and Noble, propped up next to Bill Denbrough’s newest chiller. (He flips through them sometimes, even though he’s got signed copies at home, and says “No, they’re not really my style” when someone asks if he’s read them.) It’s  _ really  _ weird to see them posing on the red carpet together—not lovestruck teens anymore, but still bickering for the cameras just the same. 

No, that’s not the kind of life for Stan. He’d much rather be a joke in a comedy special, or a line in a book. He just wants to be the guy with the puzzles. 

“…other?” 

He glances up from the puzzle at his curious wife. “Huh?” 

“I said”—Pat smiles at him, but there’s something fragile in the way her eyebrows knit together. Something worried.— “Do you think they’ll be able to make it to the wedding without killing each other?” 

And just like that, he’s a kid again, standing next to them as they bicker back and forth about arcades, and potpourri, and Eddie’s mom. He always stood between them like a mediator, a peacemaker—an immovable object standing between two unstoppable forces. Eddie looked to him for backup, and Richie sought an enabler, and every time he gave them neither. He just watched, rolling his eyes or shaking his head, never offering neutral advice because neither of them would ever let him get a word in edgewise. 

“Absolutely not.”

A sudden buzz from his phone sets the whole table vibrating. The edges of the puzzle pieces rattle, and he scrambles to grab it before it shakes apart all of his hard work. He stares down at the screen. 

His breath catches. 

“It’s Eddie.” 

Pat raises her eyebrows. “That was fast.” She bites down on her smile in an attempt to hold it back, and releases her bottom lip when she realizes that she can’t. Her eyes sparkle with a challenge. “Put it on speaker.” 

He puts a finger over his lips, and then he does. 

“Stanley Uris speaking.” 

Patty’s already laughing, covering her mouth as she silently snickers in the corner of the room, and Stan tries not to look at her. If he does, he’ll laugh too, and then their stealth mission will completely fall to pieces. 

_ “Hey, it’s me.”  _ He sounds…nervous, and not quite there—like he’s driving, or wandering around the supermarket. Like he needs to keep himself busy in as many ways as possible. He’s never been able to sit still, always pacing and talking a mile a minute—stopping halfway through half-baked rants to ask  _ what’s this? What’s that? Oh, I have one of these _ and whack a paddleball in Stanley’s face until the ball flies off and bounces between the floorboards.  _ “Eddie,”  _ he clarifies, as if Stan wouldn’t recognize his voice in the dark,  _ “It’s Eddie.”  _

“Who?” Stan asks, just to be petty. 

_ “Very funny. Can I tell you something?”  _

Stan and Pat exchange silent glances across the office and he nods, sitting down on the edge of his desk and holding his phone face-up so the echoes of Eddie’s voice fill the room. It bounces off the walls, tiptoes across the puzzle, and dances along the spines of the books lined up on the shelf. His nervous tone shifts into something excited and overwhelmed, like someone’s just handed him a giant cake and he’s not sure how to cut it. 

“You can tell me anything.” Stan’s free hand messes with his sleeve and he pushes up over his wrist out of habit. His fingers brush the puffy scar tissue rising out of his inner arm and he immediately yanks his sleeve back down. “We’re Losers. That’s what we do.” And he’s always more or less been the group counselor; people trust him. They come to him with questions, and queries, and dark, deeply repressed secrets that gnaw at their guts and dump it onto his shoulders like dirty laundry. He doesn’t mind. It makes him feel important, makes him feel wanted and wise. 

All of the Losers guard something. Whether it’s knowledge about Derry, or secretive ancient rituals, or even their lives—everyone has something special that they keep close to them in a little box to protect for the sake of the group. Bill guards and bolsters their courage. Eddie watches over their health. 

Stan holds onto their secrets. And he tucks them away in a little box and keeps them deep inside his heart for safekeeping. 

As much as he’d like to think that he’s always been mature, he can’t help bouncing his knee and fidgeting like a child waiting to get through the greetings at his birthday party so he can finally open his damn presents. 

_ “I—uh…”  _ Eddie’s nervous, almost giddy sigh makes Stan’s guts twist in anticipation.  _ “I’m gonna propose.”  _ Stan opens his mouth. Says nothing. Closes it again. Pat stares at him, wide-eyed and open-jawed. He tries not to meet her eyes, because if he does, they’re both going to scream. Eddie takes the silence as confusion and tries to clarify. “ _ To Richie. Um. I mean, obviously to Richie, who else would I…Anyway.”  _

Stan clears his throat and chokes out a “When?” 

_ “Friday night. We’re going to dinner.”  _

Pat promptly excuses herself from the room. 

Stan drags a hand down his face in disbelief. They’re just… _ so  _ stupid. He doesn’t know what he expected, because they’ve always been dumber than two bags of rocks dropped off the side of the Kissing Bridge, but he just didn’t think they could ever be  _ this  _ dumb. It’s going to go wrong, of course—in a delightful, romantic, awkward way. Someone’s going to lose a couple teeth, or end up with a black eye, or both of them are going to blurt out their proposals in the middle of a petty but vicious argument. And then, when the truth comes out on Saturday morning, Stan will have to pretend to be surprised. 

He can’t stop smiling. 

…

They have a dog now, and that has to mean  _ something _ in this day and age, right? They got her after six ( five, according to Eddie, but for a guy who got a degree in statistics, he’s surprisingly shit at math) of dating, totally by mistake. 

After the events of the cistern and the  _ Not Scary at All  _ door, they made a clear, verbal agreement: under no circumstances were there to be any Pomeranians in this household. 

There is a Pomeranian in this household. 

There is a Pomeranian  _ running  _ this household. 

The fact that their eclectic, colorful victorian was purchased with Richie’s money and decorated with his taste in mind doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter that Eddie’s name has joined Richie’s on the deed, or that both of their clothes hang in the closet. Who cares if Eddie sorts through the bills, and scrubs the counters, and tried to fix the pipes one time? (  _ “Fuck you, I’m masc, I can do it.”  _ He couldn’t do it. Richie came home to a flooded bathroom, and a furious, drowned rat of a boyfriend, and they had to redo all the plumbing in the house.) And it’s  _ definitely _ not important that they fucking  _ live there _ . 

This is Helen Rose’s house, and she wants everyone to know it.

She trots into the living room, past the brick fireplace that they never light because they’re in fucking  _ California _ , and plops her fluffy little ass down on the magenta Persian rug that they got at a flea market somewhere. Her eyes, dark and shiny, blink up at Richie as he ends the call with Stan and sets his phone on the coffee table. The heart-shaped charm on her collar jingles as she shakes out her floofy coat. She’s wearing her floral collar today—the teal one with the baby pink roses. Yes, she has multiple collars for multiple occasions and days of the week, yes she needs and deserves every single one of them. And what about it? 

A bark makes her intentions clear. 

“Hey, baby girl.” Richie pats his lap. “You want up? Yeah? Come on up.” 

Eddie tried to instill a  _ no dog on the couch  _ rule. So Richie sat on the floor with her until he caved. He also tried to instill a  _ no dog in the bed  _ rule, so Richie slept on the couch with her until he, again, caved and allowed her to curl up between them in their king-sized bed. (Which they don’t even really need because they practically sleep on top of each other anyway, snoring into one another’s ears all night.) 

She gives a wiggle before launching herself on top of Richie, filling his face with her soft fluff. She still smells like the vanilla and oat shampoo they doused her in at the puppy spa last week during her monthly visit. Yes, they take her to a puppy spa once a month. No, they aren’t defensive about it, fuck you very much for asking. She gets her nails filed ( _ not  _ painted. That’s a step into “flamboyantly gay dog dads” territory that they  _ refuse  _ to take), and her teeth brushed, and her coat washed and carefully maintained to keep her at maximum fluff. Her wet little snout tucks into Richie’s neck as she gets herself comfortable against his chest. She folds her paws underneath her and flops onto him like a fluffy potato bug. 

Richie rubs her ear. “You’re so spoiled, you know that?” At first, they’d planned on getting a big dog that could zoom around without a leash and join Eddie on his morning jogs. They wanted a  _ pet _ that could sleep in its own bed and stay off the couch, and maybe do a trick or two. A tiny, yappy little purse dog was  _ not  _ in the cards, and neither of them considered themselves to be the type to pamper an animal like royalty, but here they are. He rubs her other ear to make sure they get equal attention. “You’re just a little princess, huh? How the fuck did you manage to get us wrapped around your little paw like this?” For emphasis, he picks up one of her tiny paws. 

She lifts her head and looks at him with those big ol’ eyes. 

“That’s not fair.” 

Her little body jolts as she sneezes. 

“What the fuck,” he mutters as he picks her up and holds her above his face, “Why are you so cute? What the fuck is wrong with you?” Helen Rose kicks out a paw excitedly and accidentally knocks Richie’s glasses askew. It’s not that big of a deal, but she could shit on the floor and he wouldn’t care because she’s so fucking  _ cute _ . “Cute, cute,  _ cute! _ ” Richie exclaims as he lowers her back down on his chest. “You’re gonna be the cutest flower girl on the fucking planet. Aren’t you?  _ Aren’t you? _ ” She wiggles against him and barks, as if to say  _ oh, yes, Papa! I’m gonna be the cutest flower girl on the fucking planet!  _ She licks his nose. “Yeah, I know.” 

Richie and Helen Rose lounge together on the green leather couch. The idea of a green leather couch on its own is disgusting; if you meet a man on  _ Tinder, _ or  _ Grindr _ , or  _ Pokémon Go  _ and he invites you over, and you see a green leather couch when you enter the foyer of his bachelor pad, he is either very obnoxious or plotting to kill you. If you met him via  _ Words With Friends _ , he is likely both. However, if you met him thirty six years ago, pined for him when you didn’t even know you were pining for him, and then decide to show up at his door riding on the winds of a near-death experience and a recent divorce, and you see a green leather couch when you enter the foyer of his bachelor pad, you can rest assured that he’s not plotting to kill you, but that he  _ is  _ very obnoxious—but you already knew that, didn’t you? And you love that, because you wouldn’t have flown across the country with all your belongings on your back if you hadn’t. 

The woman at the antique shop called it a  _ Chesterfield,  _ not a couch. She tried fruitlessly to make a distinction between the two, which fell upon deaf ears because Richie didn’t really care. The deep buttons sewn into the back of the  _ Chesterfield  _ created nice, crisp arches in the smooth upholstery. The arms rolled over into wide spirals, the seams traced with little bronze studs. They reminded Richie of a line of ants parading tiny coins along the inside edges of the arms. He didn’t like to think about coins, or tokens, or  _ Street Fighter _ , or the way that his young hands tingled as he high-fived another boy. But, the rolled arms made it look dramatic—and, most importantly, it made  _ him  _ look dramatic when he draped his long, drunken body over it at three in the morning during one of his  _ episodes.  _ Bathrobe unfurled, fingers barely grasping the neck of a half-empty bottle of something dizzying and bitter, he’d lay on the garish green  _ Chesterfield  _ until dawn, listening to Queen’s  _ A Day at the Races _ until he fell asleep like a tortured genius waiting for a revelation. In the morning he got up, he died a little. Could barely stand on his feet.

Call it a couch, call it a  _ Chesterfield _ , or just call it ugly. 

But you can’t call it cheap. 

Richie stares up at the art-deco chandelier hanging from the ceiling. It came with the house, and it doesn’t even work; he cares too little to get it fixed, but cares too much to get rid of it. It’s just one of those eccentric, elegant details that make his house one of the most eclectic and obnoxious stops on the  _ Homes of the Stars  _ map. No one ever shows up. He’s not famous enough for that. 

The chandelier looks like a titty from this angle—an iridescent, peachy-yellow mound with a bronze finial dripping from the center. His depression is as familiar with the ceiling-titty as it is with the forest-green sofa and the half-empty bottles of things dizzying and bitter. He used to have a lamp like that in his bedroom as a kid, and it would cast breast-shaped shadows on his wall at night. He used to wonder if he was supposed to be turned on by that, if the other boys at school gazed longingly at the finial, or the shape of the sphere. Stupid. It was a fucking lamp. But by the time he was thirteen, he knew well enough why the mundanely erotic shadow of the ceiling-titty had no effect on him. 

He doesn't lay on the couch, embroiled in depression and staring at the chandelier all that often anymore. That’s not to say that he doesn’t get depressed, or that he doesn’t lay on the couch. Those things still happen often, but usually not in conjunction with each other. The couch has transformed, like a pumpkin into a carriage. His favorite place to drink himself to sleep became his favorite place to cuddle somewhere around the time when his relationship with Eddie shifted from “Somebody to Love” to “You and I”; it became his favorite place to eat In-N-Out and watch true crime documentaries until they fell asleep early; it became his favorite place to play Mario Kart, and shove and kick at each other to try to get the upper hand until the computer defeated them both; it became his favorite place to drink his coffee on lazy Sundays, squeezing absentmindedly at Eddie’s legs as he flipped through the same comic books he liked as a kid, both of them still in their pajamas in the middle of the afternoon. And he still lays there on his back sometimes, long legs dangling over the edge of the curved arm, but he almost never does so alone—he lays there with Eddie on top of him, and Helen Rose on top of Eddie, and a blanket on top of Helen Rose if it’s unexpectedly chilly. 

Somewhere between two in the afternoon and six in the evening, Richie falls asleep. 

He awakes with a jolt when the sun blazes crimson, hauled out of his already-forgotten dream by a sudden tickle on his foot. 

“You’ve got a hole in your sock,” Eddie points out as he rubs his fingertip against the exposed patch of skin on the sole of Richie’s foot, “It looks sloppy. And they stink.” 

“ _ You’re  _ sloppy.” Is it a lame retort? Well, it’s certainly not one of Richie’s harshest digs, but it still gets Eddie to smile and fold himself down over the couch to kiss him on the cheek, so he can’t exactly say it’s ineffective. His bleary, still-sleepy eyes shift into focus behind his smudged glasses. Eddie is smiling. So his stinky feet can’t be that bad. “Says the guy who spent half our childhood shoving his feet in my face.” He extends his leg and gives Eddie a playful smack on the cheek. (The pair of them in that hammock, nestled together like two argumentative, pathological peas in a pod. Touching each other’s legs as an act of rebellion. An endless mantra of  _ I love you, I love you, I love you _ ; another of  _ I’m so scared, I’m so scared, I’m so scared. _ ) 

Eddie gags. He knocks Richie’s foot out of the way. His mouth says “I fucking hate you”, but the way his brows crease and the way his eyes wrinkle just a little at the corners say otherwise. He pushes Richie’s body to one end of the couch. Richie tries to resist, but the traitorous and green leather upholstery is too slippery for him to put up a fight. “Scooch, asshole.” Richie flings out a leg in retaliation, and Eddie catches him by the calf.

Gay porn really underestimates the raw sex appeal of being manhandled by a guy who’s a good head shorter than you. Literally. It’s all “tall muscle top” this and “Big Beefcake Hockey Daddy Raw Fucks Twink In Shower After The Big Game™️” that. And that sort of thing is good for a guilty night in during a long,  _ long _ period of repression, but none of it compares to the way Eddie looks up at him when he slips his hand into Richie’s back pocket at a dinner party, or at an awards event, or at fucking  _ Ralphs _ . It sends Richie quivering like a bowl of rainbow Jell-O after being slapped with a wooden spoon to check the firmness. (And every time, Richie finds himself suddenly  _ very  _ firm in all the wrong ways for the produce aisle.) 

Eddie knows this. Eddie is smug about this. Eddie re-arranges Richie’s body on the sofa like a fucking rag doll until he’s laid out like one of those weird, kinky buffets where naked, sweaty people lay down on a table and you eat room temperature sushi off their junk. And then, Eddie flops down and practically folds himself over Richie’s body like he’s just an extension of the couch. 

“I need to kiss the love of my life,” he announces, like he’ll die if he doesn’t. Richie, because he doesn’t want Eddie to die, and because he’s fairly certain by now that he’s the love of Eddie’s life, leans his cheek in. He receives a shove to the face and a hurried “Move” before Eddie swoops down to pluck an excited Helen Rose out of Richie’s lap. She barks like a squeaky little traitor as Eddie scoops her up and kisses her furry little head. “Hello, sweetheart! Hi!” No, Richie is not jealous of a  _ dog.  _ Yes, he crosses his arms and sulks a little, but that’s for a totally unrelated reason, which is none of your business. Eddie tucks Helen Rose under his arm and leans over. “Why the long face?” He presses a loud kiss to Richie’s cheek. “Bitch.” 

Richie turns his head to say something witty, combative, and a little bit gross, but Eddie traps the words between their lips. 


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hi!! i'm so sorry, i forgot to update this fic over the past few months, which is funny considering it's already been WRITTEN and the completed story was just sitting in my google drive! 
> 
> i hope all of you are staying safe, sane, and clean during this pandemic! in light of being trapped in quarantine, i've decided to mass-update this fic over the course of the next few days, rather than giving it a good week in between. 
> 
> thank you for reading, and i hope you all are staying safe! :)

The week flurries by in a frenzied rush of chugged coffee, long meetings, and handwritten jokes wadded into balls and chucked in the general direction of a wastebasket. Petty bickering and pecks on the cheek litter the days, all of which end and begin with sleepy, graceless snuggling. The days start to bleed together somewhere between Tuesday night and Wednesday morning, and by the time Thursday rolls around, Eddie can’t remember what he ate for breakfast on Monday. 

Adulthood makes time slip through your fingers like sand, that’s what everyone says. And maybe it’s true—twenty-seven years seemed to fly by like  _ that _ , while simultaneously crawling by at the pace of the snail that just completed a thirty-second bong rip. Eddie can’t even remember most of it, but he got married young, so he very well could’ve shrouded two decades of forced heterosexuality under a sheet and pretended they didn’t exist. If his life were a bookshelf, Richie would be a pair of bookends in the middle, and everything in between them weren’t important. They were just filler.

And the books about Myra were either torn to shreds or chained and locked around the spines. 

(She tried to sue Richie a good two months after their relationship went public. Seven hundred and fifty grand, for  _ alienation of affection and criminal conversation _ , which is apparently something you can sue for. Buzzfeed had a field day with it. ( “Richie Tozier Just Got Sued For Whore Crimes and We Are All SHOOK!!!!” “Which Richie Tozier mood are you today? You’re Slutty Gay Lawsuit Richie!”) The case was dropped shortly after.

After Derry, Eddie spent months with a knot in the pit of his stomach, wondering when the cops were going to knock their door down and haul Richie away for killing Henry Bowers, but that hasn’t happened yet, and it’s not like there was much of a loss there anyway. The only people who hated Bowers more than the Losers were probably the cops. Richie’s hands still shake over it sometimes. He still throws up thinking about it in the middle of the night, guilty, and sick with it, and scared that maybe the nightmare still isn’t over. He grips Eddie’s arm tightly whenever they walk past the Pasadena Public Library. 

Fortunately, Richie Tozier did not have to appear in court for the murder of Henry Bowers. Unfortunately, Richie Tozier had to appear in court for being a whore.) 

Eddie jumps the days leading up to Friday like hurdles, picking up momentum as he goes. The hours between him and his potential (probable) engagement are nothing but a series of obstacles in his path.

And then he slams face-first into Thursday evening. 

He’s managed to make it through the past few days without dropping to his knees to pop the question (he dropped to his knees a little bit on Tuesday night, and although he’d considered it, his mouth as a little too full to ask  _ will you marry me? _ ). The words are there, burning on the tip of his tongue like a cinnamon candy that he desperately wants to just  _ spit out already— _ and he’s second guessing every kiss, every prolonged gaze that blossoms between them, wondering if that was it, if he just missed the perfect opportunity. The smallest thing can set his brain wandering, desperately meandering through an upside-down neighborhood with backwards street signs, trying to find the moment that feels the most like home. 

He almost asked this morning, when Richie stumbled out of the shower with a towel slung low around his waist, hair dripping and curled against the back of his neck like a squeaky clean neoclassical sculpture of Caesar. It’s not like Richie was doing anything particularly sexy or romantic. All he had to do was shake the water out of his ears, blindly walk directly into the nightstand, and ask  _ “Baby, have you seen my glasses?”  _ and Eddie wanted to ask him to marry him so fucking badly that he thought he’d go crazy with it. 

Loving Richie is made up of the little things, like way the sun catches his eyes when they walk together, or the way he sits on the loveseat by the window—one knee pulled to his chest and the other outstretched, arms crossed in thought as he watches the world go by—or the way he laughs each time he gets Eddie riled up and swearing. It’s in the way he kisses the top of Eddie’s head and presses a mug of hot coffee into his sleepy hands, and the way he rubs Eddie’s legs as they lay together on the couch, tangled like a gay, codependent pretzel, while they watch TV. 

He doesn’t have to  _ do  _ anything to drive Eddie nuts (but he does anyway, constantly acting out and toeing the line, just to get the attention he craves, and it works every time). 

And on any other day of any week, all of this would be fine. Eddie would bask in it, and wrap Richie’s sharp wit and awkward tenderness around his shoulders like a woolen blanket (cozy, warm, but a little scratchy like Richie’s persistent stubble, he still has beard burn on his inner thigh from Tuesday evening). But it’s  _ Thursday  _ of  _ this week _ , and each time Richie is within eyeshot, Eddie feels like he’s going to fly apart and toss aside his  _ very  _ meticulously organized proposal game plan. 

It’s movie night, and movie night means cuddling on the couch, and tossing popcorn into each other’s mouths, and Richie’s long arms curled around Eddie’s middle, face pressed to his chest so close that he has no choice but to take the glasses off. Movie night means Eddie’s heart hammering against Richie’s cheek, and Richie occasionally glancing up at him with those stupid blue eyes that used to keep Eddie up at night when he was thirteen, and in love, and equal parts angry and scared about it. 

Movie night poses the biggest threat to Eddie’s plans so far, because if Richie snuggles up to him and blinks those pretty eyes at him, Eddie  _ will  _ break. Tomorrow night, and the restaurant with the view of downtown LA, and the whole speech that Eddie has practiced every morning while glaring at himself in the mirror (  _ “Don’t fuck this up, asshole, you’ve only got one shot at making this perfect.” _ ) will be forgotten, and he’ll look like a lazy bastard, proposing marriage while laying on the couch in his sweatpants. 

It’s his turn to pick the movie, and he stands in front of the Redbox at Ralphs trying to find the least romantic movie imaginable, the movie least likely to depict a longing gaze, or a prolonged silence that could give Eddie the misplaced courage to accidentally lay it all out on the table. He pushes past titles like  _ The Proposal  _ and  _ My Best Friend’s Wedding.  _ He bypasses  _ Along Came Polly  _ pretty much immediately after reading the synopsis. (“ _ Buttoned up risk analyst Reuben Feffer finds his too organized life falling into chaos when he falls in love with an old classmate. Loving Polly could be the greatest risk he’ll ever take…or the safest option…” _ ) He sifts through superhero flicks and family films, frantically searching for something with no obvious romantic subplot. He avoids comedies, because if Richie laughs he’ll lose it. He avoids horror flicks and monster movies, because if Richie jokingly hides behind Eddie’s shoulder and covers his eyes, he’ll lose it.

He avoids tearjerking dramas, because if Richie cries, Eddie won’t be able to help himself. He’ll touch his cheeks, and wipe the tears away, and say  _ hey, baby, don’t cry, sweetheart…marry me instead.  _

After standing there, groceries in reusable bags at his feet, holding up the line and getting called out for it by a kid with his mom, Eddie finally selects  _ Mad Max Fury Road.  _ It looks badass, and violent, and metal as fuck, with more of a focus on sociopolitical commentary than creating a warm and fuzzy feeling. So no heart boners. And there’s a strong lack of hot, shirtless dudes, which means that the chances of either of them getting a dick boner are pretty low. 

But then again, they also boned down in the middle of watching  _ The Blair Witch Project.  _

(  _ “We should totally go camping, huh, Eds? Just you and me under the stars…”  _ The idea of sleeping outside, exposed to the elements, and bugs, and potentially very hungry bears wasn’t appealing. But the way Richie’s hand settled at that sensitive fold between Eddie’s pelvis and his inner thigh  _ was  _ very appealing, so he said he’d considered it and then not-so-subtly pushed Richie’s face into his lap.) 

So there’s probably nothing off limits. 

Eddie drives home with groceries in the back, a lump in his throat, and Al Green crooning on the radio. 

_ “Let’s get married today! Might as well!” _

“Fuck you,” Eddie mutters. He switches the station, choosing some show tunes to distract the mind. Eddie’s never been a big fan of theater—he can’t sit still through most plays, and musicals are only good at giving him earworms. He only half listens to the lyrics, tapping his fingers to the jaunty piano and enthusiastic chorus. And the clanging bells. 

Bells?

Uh-oh. 

_ “Donna, let's try it! You love me, don’t deny it!”  _

Eddie knows this one. It sounds distant, but familiar. It sounds the way rosé tastes, and the way Richie’s laugh felt rumbling against Eddie’s back as he leaned against him, and the way Bev’s nail polish smelled as it dried on her toes the night before her wedding. The three of them and Patty Uris spent the night in her hotel room, chugging boxed wine and eating gourmet burgers delivered via room service. 

_ “Say I do…?”  _

Richie and Bev danced together in front of the TV as the movie played, shouting the words so loudly that Bill had to knock on the door and politely ask them to _“Shuh-shut the fuck up”_ because it was nearly two AM. It wasn’t dancing, not really really—more of them just drunkenly yanking each other’s arms back and forth, but Eddie still watched, nursing his glass of half-drunk Franzia Moscato, and loved them both more than he thought he ever had before. 

Bev’s wedding dress was hanging off the back of the bathroom door, zipped up in a bag. 

Eddie braces himself for the next line. 

_ “I do! I do! I do! I do! I do!”  _

Nope. Show tunes are out. Eddie frantically jumps to the next station, foolishly praying for the best. 

_ “It's a beautiful night! We’re looking for something to do! Hey, baby—I think I wanna marry you!”  _

Eddie wants to scream. He’s sitting in five o’clock traffic in Pasa-fucking-dena, California, with a pizza cooling on the backseat and an empty Starbucks reusable travel mug in the cupholder—and a carefully chosen engagement ring hidden in his sock drawer that he’s  _ terrified  _ of Richie finding, and he can’t find a single fucking song on the radio that  _ isn’t  _ about getting married. 

He spends the rest of his commute hopping from 80s New Wave (  _ “It’s a nice day for a white wedding! It’s a nice day to” _ — “Nope.”) to 2000s R&B ( _ “Meet me in the altar in your white dress. We ain’t getting no younger, we might as well do it _ ”— “Are you fucking kidding me?!” ) to even fucking  _ classical  _ ( “Just ahead, you’ll hear Wagner’s 1850 “Bridal Chorus” in B flat minor”— “NO!”) before he finally decides that he’d be better off driving the rest of the way home in silence. 

The first time he stood on Richie’s doorstep, the only word that came to mind was  _ wow.  _ It’s a versatile word, one that takes on many different meanings in one. In this case, the word wow meant: _ wow, this house is so fucking tacky, wow, the architecture is incredible, wow, I’m really standing here on Richie Tozier’s front stoop with my suitcases behind me because I just impulsively left my wife and quit my job and flew all the way here from New York because I’ve been in love with him for longer than I can remember, and this is the only place I want to be right now _ . And, admittedly, the house is a little tacky to the untrained eye. 

It’s a victorian, complete with a wide porch, multi-colored scalloped siding, and a tower-shaped room on the far left side that Richie uses as a study. In comparison to all the white, wide-windowed mansions around it, it’s either an artifact or an eyesore, depending on your point of view. Just like Richie, people either love the house or they hate it. They either pause on their morning jogs to compliment the elaborately detailed pediment above the double-doors, or bitch about it not matching the  _ aesthetic  _ of the neighborhood. It’s loud, and unique, and it looks like a child decided to paint it whatever colors they wanted, and it’s completely, unabashedly, and unashamedly  _ Richie _ . 

And, just like Richie, it’s  _ home _ . 

Eddie parks his car next to Richie’s little red zoomer (annoying, flashy, a little too conspicuous) and attempts to balance the grocery bags on top of the pizza box—which he balances on top of his  _ briefcase— _ to get everything in the house in one trip. It doesn’t matter how much shit he has in the trunk, Eddie Kaspbrak is a notorious  _ one tripper _ . He’d sooner throw a jug of milk through the window than have to go back to his car a second time like a weak little  _ coward _ . Two trips?  _ Please _ . He’d rather take a bullet. 

He soldiers up to the front porch and sets everything down to search for his keys. Richie must be out walking the dog, because he and Helen Rose are usually running to the door to shower Eddie in affection by now. Sure enough, when he opens the door, he finds that the hooks they use to hang her leash and their keys is empty. Eddie drops his keys onto the third hook from the left and starts hauling everything into the kitchen. 

Eddie is  _ very  _ particular about how he keeps their kitchen. They have a classic  _ you cook, I clean  _ routine; Richie makes the biggest mess when he cooks, so Eddie has to clean the kitchen more often than any other part of the house. He spends a good twenty minutes of every day organizing their retro refrigerator (well, okay, it’s not  _ authentically  _ retro, it’s a Smeg, because Eddie would sooner die than trust a decades-old refrigerator with his perishables), and scrubbing the marble countertops of their teal counters, and mopping suspicious stains off of their black and white checkered floor. He organizes their cupboards and pantry because Richie  _ never  _ knows where to put the pots and pans. No matter how much times Eddie reminds him that they need to  _ on top of the shelf above the stove,  _ it goes through one ear and out the other and Richie either throws them into the cupboard under the sink or leaves them on the counter. 

He’s currently on his knees, loading up their refrigerator with new groceries and writing down the expiration dates on a magnetic notepad, when he hears the front door swing open. Helen Rose’s neatly manicured claws clack against the tile floor as she scampers into the kitchen, wet little nose to the floor to trace Eddie’s scent all the way to the fridge. She paws at his pants and yaps in his face until he picks her up and gives her kisses. 

“Did you miss me?” he coos, just barely missing her tongue as she tries to lick his mouth. Richie lets her drag her tongue all over his face, which is gross, because she literally licks her own vag and Eddie is pretty sure he caught her eating a dead chipmunk once. She might be the cutest baby in the whole world (and yes that includes  _ literal  _ human babies), but there’s no way he’s letting her slobber anywhere near his mouth. He gives her a scratch under the chin. “Yeah? I missed  _ you!  _ All day at work, all I could think about was if my little baby was being taken care of!” 

“I missed you more, but okay. Guess I’ll go fuck myself.” Richie slaps Eddie’s ass before he can even get up from the kitchen floor. Does he really have to do it so  _ hard? _ It doesn’t  _ hurt _ , but his hands are  _ big _ , and the slap reverberates through the kitchen, bouncing off the tile floor and the exposed brick on the wall behind the stove. He shoves his hands into his coat pockets with a wolfish grin when Eddie whirls around to glare at him. “Buenos dias, Eduardo.” 

“You’re lucky I love you,” Eddie mutters as he climbs to his feet, Helen Rose tucked under his arm like a fuzzy little football. 

He takes a step forward. It’s a challenge. They both know this dance by now. It’s as old as cat and mouse, as Cain and Abel; Richie acts out, Eddie chases him, Richie bolts, and then acts out again—and so it goes until Eddie finally catches him and pins him to the bed, or the couch, or the wall in the front hallway, which was what Richie wanted all along. So maybe it  _ isn’t  _ like Cain and Abel, because Abel probably didn’t want his head bashed in, and he  _ definitely _ (hopefully?) didn’t want Cain to plow him into the mattress after. 

“You love me?” Richie quickly steps aside to dodge Eddie’s oncoming hand. “This is the first I’m hearing it.” 

“Oh, shut the fuck up.” Eddie tries to grab at him again, but Richie slips around to the other side of the kitchen island and ducks down to hide behind the butcher block and the bowl of apples. Richie’s height limits him in the stealth department; Eddie can see his curly mop of black hair over the lip of the fruit bowl and slides on his Nordstrom loafers as he rounds the counter to catch him. He manages to hook a finger in Richie’s belt loop before he pirouettes out of reach again. Eddie places Helen Rose on the ground and places his hands on his hips. “So that’s how it is, huh?” 

Richie jerks to the left to fake Eddie out before sliding to the right and back around the counter. “Oh”—Eddie loves that smile, and the challenge glimmering in his eyes— “That’s  _ so  _ how it is.” 

The two of them chase each other around the kitchen like kids on the schoolyard—except they’re not kids. They’re in their forties, and Eddie is wearing a suit and loafers, and they’ve got a yappy little fluffball trotting along behind them. Finally, Eddie manages to trap Richie against the counter by the stove, pushing their hips together to hold him in place. 

“No way out,” he warns, grinning up at Richie as he “attempts” to squirm out of his grip. 

Richie throws an arm across his eyes. “Woe is me! I’m trapped! Helen Rose, call the police! Tell them that I’ve been  _ accosted _ by a— _ hey _ !” He yelps as Eddie grabs him by the hips and spins him around. Richie might be taller, but he’s also light and gangly, like one of those stupid inflatable tube men you see dancing in used car lots—and Eddie might be little, but he’s fierce. And Richie underestimates him every time. Richie glances back at him as Eddie folds his torso over the counter with a hand on his shoulder. “Ooh, I think I like this.” 

Eddie grabs a wooden spoon from the ceramic crock on the counter beside the stove. 

“Never mind!” Richie’s long arms pinwheel frantically. “I don’t like this! I don’t like this!” He yelps as a loud  _ smack  _ echoes through the kitchen. 

Eddie grins. “Buenos dias, Ricardo.” 

Richie scowls and hops onto the counter, swinging his legs. His head brushes the backs of the cupboards. “I hate you,” he says, but he doesn’t mean it. 

“I know.” Eddie stands on the tips of his toes to kiss his nose. “I hate you too.” 

“No, really, I can’t fucking stand you.” Richie wrinkles his nose and plants a sloppy kiss on the corner of Eddie’s chin. “You’re the worst person I’ve ever met, and I once got cussed out by Ellen Degeneres in a Chipotle parking lot.” 

“That wasn’t Ellen Degeneres.” Eddie squeezes Richie’s face in one hand and kisses his scrunched up lips. “That was just a lesbian with a bad haircut.” 

Richie bats Eddie’s hands away and then catches one, kissing the heel of his palm. “Ellen Degeneres is a lesbian with a bad haircut.” He gives Eddie’s hand a playful nip, not really biting but rolling the skin between his teeth. “You have gay rabies now. Gaybies.” Before Eddie can retaliate by shoving his freshly infected hand into Richie’s face, Richie hops off the counter and starts snooping through the stuff Eddie picked up for dinner. He opens the pizza box. “Phew! Could they have used  _ any _ more garlic? I’m  _ so  _ not kissing you tonight.” 

Eddie asked for extra garlic for this very reason, but he knows that Richie will probably kiss him anyway. 

Richie picks up the Redbox DVD and inspects it. “ _ Mad Max _ , huh? Is this the one with the post apocalyptic fetish gear?” 

“Yeah,” Eddie replies as he opens the fridge and seeks out a can of wet dog food for Helen Rose, “But this one’s feminist apparently.” He locates the can and sets it on the counter for Richie to portion out and slap into her bowl. Something about the slimy, ground up meat makes Eddie gag. 

“Ooh, we love a feminist reboot.” Richie grabs the can and opens it with his back turned so Eddie doesn’t have to see or smell anything. “Feminism is great. Did you know that my mom used to burn her bras in the 70s?” He spoons out the food into Helen Rose’s bowl and sets it on her little placemat on the floor so she can chow down. “Yeah, it was a whole thing. She had a bunch of her friends over one night and they all burned their bras in the back yard and ran around with their tits out like witches in the 1700s.” 

Eddie can picture it, but he’s not sure he wants to. He opens one of the cabinets and grabs two plates. “I didn’t know that. What did Went think about that?” 

“I think Went was probably passed out on the couch the whole time.” Richie pats Helen Rose’s back a few times before standing back up and heading to the sink to wash his hands. He scrubs thoroughly because he knows Eddie won’t let him close if he doesn’t. “Hey, can you put two slices on mine?” 

Eddie nods and portions out two pieces of pizza onto Richie’s plate. He also lays down a heaping portion of wings—just the drumsticks. Richie eats the drums, Eddie eats the flats, and they always throw out the celery. “I don’t think my mom really gave a shit about women’s rights,” he admits as he sets Richie’s plate on the counter and starts putting together his own, “I mean, she might’ve, but I don’t really remember.” 

Myra certainly didn’t. She didn’t like to get  _ political  _ about things. She held strong opinions on Eddie’s delicacy, and clung to conspiracies about the food industry—and loved applying age-old gender roles _. Eddie, of course you can’t pick out the wedding cake. You know how you get when you have sugar! It’s not good for you to stress out over planning. You can’t handle the pressure. And it’s the  _ **_bride’s_ ** _ job!  _ Well, if all this goes well, he’s going to get to shoulder the glorious burden of planning a wedding. He’ll get to pick his cake,  _ and _ eat it too! 

But he’s getting a little too far ahead of himself, because he has to ask. 

And if he’s going to ask, he has to make it through tonight without asking. 

He and Richie curl up on the couch with their pizza and wings and two glasses of Pinot Noir (Eddie read in a magazine somewhere that it goes best with white pizza, and so far he doesn’t have any complaints). Helen Rose hops up into their laps and settles with her cheek on Richie’s thighs, and her rump and back paws on Eddie’s. 

Richie lays his head on Eddie’s shoulder five minutes into the movie. By the ten minute mark. he’s tucked up his long limbs and folded his back against Eddie’s shoulder. 

After an hour, he’s asleep.

He snores. It sounds like a car that won’t start, or a Roomba that just picked up something it wants to spit out. It’s cute. 

People in love always say that the object of their affections looks younger when they sleep, and Eddie wonders if he’s doing something wrong—because Richie looks like someone’s alcoholic grandpa when he passes out on the couch. His hair falls in messy spirals across his forehead—it’s just starting to wrinkle, up at the hairline. When he’s all folded up like this, he’s got at least three chins, and the angle has pushed his glasses all the way down to the tip of his nose. Maybe Eddie doesn’t see a sleeping cherub because he’s known Richie for too long. Or maybe he just loves him enough to not need the rose-tinted glasses. 

Their love is young and old all at once; it’s playful and immature, but deep and understanding. 

Derry stuck a virus in them in 1989. Down there in the cistern, something  _ happened _ to them, and it metastasized like a cancer inside of them for almost thirty years. It ate at their memories and warped their view of what happiness was supposed to be, because they’d forgotten what it meant to really be happy. They’d forgotten what love was supposed to feel like, so they sought it out in all the wrong places. Richie constantly worked himself to the bone looking for  _ attention _ , because even in outrage, it was the closest thing he could find to love. Eddie sought familiarity, and control. He found what he thought was love in his old comfort zone, and imprisoned himself willingly to a warden who knew exactly how to get him to stay. 

And all the while, that illness grew, driving them both to points of misery and disguising them as success. 

Beneath it, something else grew too—not like a disease, but like a crystal, forming deep inside the earth, under all the pressure that adulthood forced onto their shoulders. 

Richie hit that gong and took a pickaxe to everything Eddie knew about himself—and split him wide open. He cracked his entire world in two, and that precious, beautiful  _ something  _ that had been growing inside of Eddie for  _ decades _ tumbled out of him and rolled out across the carpet of a Chinese buffet in the middle of bumfuck nowhere, Maine. It landed at Richie’s feet. 

He remembers saying  _ “Hey, look at these guys”.  _ He remembers thinking  _ “Oh, so  _ **_that’s_ ** _ what it feels like.”  _

And he’s felt it every day since. 

They catch one another’s light and reflect it back. They make each other sparkle. They’ve been in love with each other longer than they knew each other’s names—probably even before they _ had  _ names. Eddie sits there on the stupid looking green couch, a good movie that he couldn’t care less about playing in the background, watching Richie snore into his own triple chin. 

He hums to himself as he brushes Richie’s hair away from his forehead, pushing it back in an attempt to make some sense of it. _ Marry me.  _ Richie’s glasses are filthy, and Eddie carefully slides them off the bridge of his nose and cleans them on the corner of the blanket.  _ Marry me.  _ He folds them up and sets them on the table. He drops his head forward to press a kiss into Richie’s hairline. 

_ Marry me, marry me, marry me.  _


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hello again!! i'd like to first and foremost thank everyone who left kudos and kind comments!! it's so easy for writers to get discouraged when they don't receive any feedback, so please know how much i deeply appreciate what all of you had to say ♡ 
> 
> this chapter is dedicated to my best friend and whore wife, tuesday. i love you :') 
> 
> also, emetephobia tw for this chapter. you can skip to the notes at the end to see a brief recap, if you're unable to read it. 
> 
> enjoy!!! :)

and asking  _ what’s the deal with airports, am I right?  _ He has complaints about his vlogger neighbors, who hold noisy pool parties and accidentally leaked their address on a livestream. (There were a much of rabid preteens meme-dancing in the street for two straight weeks. It made Richie want to get a hysterectomy—and he doesn’t even have a  _ hyster  _ to  _ ectomy _ !) He has complaints about skinny jeans, and bodysuits (how the fuck do you  _ pee  _ in those things?) and everything else that people wear in LA. He has complaints about combination shampoo and conditioner, because it’s a fucking lie. 

He has big complaints too, about the government, and war, and how late-stage capitalism has made everyone’s life a living Hell. He has complaints about abortion bans, and white nationalism, and people who think it’s cool to carry automatic rifles around at Wal-Mart. 

But one thing he can’t bring himself to complain about is how fucking  _ pretty  _ LA is at night. 

Maybe it’s the small-town boy in him. There’s something about the tall buildings all aglow—illuminated like standing galaxies, and surrounded by scattered palms—that knocks the wind out of him. Sure, he can’t see the stars, and that sucks, and the traffic is fucking  _ awful  _ and that sucks more. But as he watches Eddie, brow creased and jaw set as he tries to navigate the roads, the neon lights paint him in flashing technicolor. They glaze the whites of his eyes with a glossy rainbow, and Richie can’t think of a single thing to complain about. 

He could be anywhere in any universe—trapped on a deserted island, or walking barefoot through the desert for decades, or half-dead from frostbite and shoved into a dead TaunTaun on a desolate ice planet—and sure, there’d be a lot to complain about objectively, but as soon as he sees Eddie gathering firewood, or guzzling from his canteen, or shivering in the snow, Richie’s going to forget whatever it is that’s bugging him. He could’ve died in those sewers, and if he bit the dust while looking at Eddie, well—

That’d be just fine. 

Thankfully, they didn’t die in the cistern, and they’re not extras in  _ Castaway _ , and they’re not following Moses fucking barefoot for forty years. And they’re not Rebel fighter pilots, either, but how fucking cool would  _ that  _ be? He’s not particularly enticed by the thought of Eddie in an orange flight suit or a desert poncho—but then he thinks about Eddie wearing Luke Skywalker’s black Chanel Emperor-Slaying getup, green lightsaber in hand, the emerald glow bouncing off his face in the dark, and okay, that’s  _ definitely _ doing something for him. He’d roll up to Jabba’s palace, free Richie from a block of carbonite, and kiss him until his sight came back. And then he’d do a ton of sick backflips. 

He envisions Eddie as a mix of Luke and Leia in this scenario because he’s pretty and tiny and feisty and  _ brave _ , and because Richie likes boys (and always thought Han’s relentless pursuit of Leia was kinda sexist anyway). 

Even as a kid, he used to fantasize about being a cocksure smuggler and gunslinger. He wanted to be witty, and he wanted to be handsome, and he wanted to be  _ wanted _ , because  _ everyone  _ wanted Han Solo. Princess Leia wanted Han Solo. Luke Skywalker wanted Han Solo. Lando Calrissian wanted Han Solo. Horny moms with girl-crushes on Harrison Ford wanted Han Solo. He wanted to have adventures, and he wanted to have them with  _ Eddie _ , who was shorter, and good at riding bikes (the closest thing you can get to being a star pilot when you’re six), and who made Richie want to be the best person he could be while also simultaneously pushing all his buttons. 

Not a lot has changed. 

Eddie is still tiny, and pretty, and feisty—and he’s so much  _ braver _ than anyone thought he was, except for Richie, he always knew. Somewhere deep down he always knew—and Richie still wants to galavant with him all over the universe and etch  _ R+E  _ into the face of every single passing comet. 

And he  _ really  _ wants to be in a  _ Star Wars  _ movie. 

Eddie manages to squeeze the car against the curb between a lime green Lambo and a gold Mustang, because everyone in this town is a showy douchebag who wants everybody to gaze longingly at their vehicle as they sit in six lanes of traffic for three straight hours. Living in New York took a bunch of Eddie’s most obnoxious ways and inflated them threefold—his defensive driving, his impatience, his rapid-fire speech (because somehow it was possible for him to talk even  _ faster _ ). He hops out of the car and Richie watches him press his hand inside his jacket, like he’s looking for something in the innermost pocket. 

That reminds him—shit! The ring! Richie tries to look inconspicuous as he mimics him, patting himself down to make sure he’s got the box. 

“Looking for something?” Eddie raises an eyebrow. “Your wallet is in”— 

Richie grins and hopes it doesn’t look strained. “My back pocket, left cheek.” He gives it a pat for emphasis. And for an excuse to draw Eddie’s attention to his ass. “What about you? Can’t find the old aspirator?” 

It’s funny—Eddie grew up sucking in compressed air that he didn’t need, and right after he tossed his inhaler into a sacrificial fire, he got stabbed in the lung and now he actually  _ does  _ need one. 

Well. 

Actually. 

It’s not that funny at all. 

“Fuck you.” From behind his middle finger, Eddie is smiling. “I was…” His eyes dart to Richie, and then to the sidewalk, and then back to Richie. He loves having those eyes on him—in a romantic way, not in a  _ I want your eyes  _ **_on_ ** _ me physically and I’ll wear them around like cufflinks or collar clips so I can always have your attention.  _ Which isn’t even a thing. Eddie’s forehead creases. “Looking for…my keys…?” He doesn’t say it, he  _ asks  _ it, like he’s testing out if that sounds legit. 

Richie shoves his hands into his pockets, first and foremost because it’s something he  _ does _ , and secondly to make sure that the ring is still okay in there. It is. His stare drops to Eddie’s hand. “You’re holding them, babe.” 

“Oh. Uh. Yep!” Eddie’s eyes get comically big and round, like the gong Richie wacked at that stupid restaurant where they found out Stan was practically dead and then got attacked by evil little fortune cookies. “I sure am!” He stuffs the keys into his pocket and stares at Richie like he’s waiting for something. When Richie just stares back, Eddie grabs his arm and starts hauling him along the sidewalk, muttering “Jesus Christ—do you need a written invitation? Our reservation is at  _ seven  _ let’s  _ go _ .” 

The restaurant is on the seventy-first floor of a fancy, modern hotel that rises like an obelisk or an ancient stele out of the bright skyline of Wilshire blvd. They’ve been there a few times on big dates. Last time they were here, it was after Richie’s book launched and hit the  _ New York Times _ best seller’s list. (The review was great. The NYT was  _ so  _ wet for his book, it was incredible, and he’s been raking in that sweet, sweet royalty cash ever since.) The two of them ride up the elevator, two guys in nice suits, surrounded by some other guys in nice suits and some ladies in pretty cocktail dresses. 

Richie takes advantage of the long ride up and focuses on replaying his game plan.  _ Make it a nice date, flirt throughout dinner, compliment Eddie excessively, and then pop the question during dessert. Make a speech so romantic that the other patrons start crying and blowing their noses into their silk ties and the corners of their cocktail dresses. Catch Eddie as he tearfully throws himself at you to kiss you senseless. And then everyone in the restaurant will clap, and then we’ll go home and have champagne-tipsy sex in the living room while the dog watches.  _ He catches Eddie’s arm and brushes his fingers over his suit. It’s different than the ones he wears to work—it’s one of his nice ones, a Dior or a BOSS or maybe even a Prada. Eddie wore it to their first public event together. Richie wonders if that was intentional. 

He leans down so their cheeks brush. “You look nice.” Bing, bang, boom, and the first compliment of the night is out of the way. This is gonna be easy peasy. He’ll have Eddie, and his pretty brown eyes, and his super talented dick on  _ lock  _ by the end of the night for sure. 

“Thanks.” Eddie’s hand slips around to Richie’s lower back and  _ oh  _ if that shit doesn’t get him weak in the knees. “You do too.” It’s just a little brush, but it tells everyone in this fucking elevator what they are. It’s not as bold of a move in Los Angeles as it might be in a place like Derry, but the bravery of it all still turns Richie on. Eddie’s asserting himself, and although he might be silent, the gesture is  _ loud _ . The smug way that Eddie’s smile twists up at the corners says  _ I know what this does to you, and that’s why I’m doing it.  _ Little bastard. 

Richie stutters out a thank you as the elevator doors open. He follows behind Eddie in a cotton candy fog as he leads them to the maître d’s podium just beyond the ornate glass double-doors. All the sounds wash over him like he’s hearing them from underwater.

(He kissed Eddie underwater once, that day at the quarry after Stan got better. They all drove back together, stood at the edge of the cliffside, and  _ jumped _ . Eddie shoved Richie’s head under the water like he used to when they were kids, and Richie grabbed him by the leg and yanked him under. And then, with their eyes blurry, surrounded by an endless backdrop of blue and green, Richie kissed him.) 

He hears the music wafting out from the speakers, and distant, muffled conversations from the many tables and booths; he hears people’s silverware clanging, and the clink of glasses at the bar, and he hears Eddie confirming their reservation, under  _ Tozier for two _ , because having a famous name makes it easier for them to get into places like this. Having a famous name also makes it easier for them to  _ afford  _ places like this, where they call mashed potatoes  _ pommes purée  _ and charge you twenty bucks for a salad. 

They reserved an intimate table by one of the wide windows. It’s a nice joint, with leather chairs and plush booths, and special rooms off to the side with a waitlist longer than Richie’s  _ wang _ . The maître d leads them between round, marble tables and past throngs of affluent twentysomethings getting absolutely  _ litty  _ at the bar.

One of the tables has a rich white family that looks like any other rich white family—graying dad, blonde mother with a pinched nose and a recent boob job, a smarmy looking little brat with a snub nose who looks too comfortable in a suit and tie at age like, nine. And an outcast. An eldest daughter who hates money and loves grunge, whose perky-breasted ex-pageant girl mother forced into a nice little dress that she still insisted on covering with a jean jacket. She’s probably wearing Doc Martens under the table. Richie accidentally meets her bored gaze as he passes, and for a second there’s nothing. Just two strangers making eye contact at a restaurant. 

And then, something happens that Richie doesn’t think he’ll ever get used to. She  _ smiles _ at him like they know each other, and points to the enamel lesbian pride flag pinned to her lapel. 

He grins and shoots her a thumbs up. 

Meeting fans in public used to wear him out. It was always edgy teenage boys, or grown men who hated their wives and girlfriends, who told him how funny his stolen jokes were.  _ Aw, man,  _ they’d say,  _ I love the one about masturbating to your girlfriend’s friend’s Facebook page—I do that shit  _ **_all the time_ ** as if that’s a normal thing that people actually do. It was easy for him to pretend to be that person on stage, but when these dudes would accost him in his everyday life, he never knew what to say, or what do with his hands. And they always did it at the wrong time, like that poor kid that Richie cussed out at the Jade of the Orient. 

He thinks about that kid a lot and it puts his guts in knots. First, he meets his hero in a restaurant, and the dude grabs him by the collar and screams in his face. Then, he sees an author whose books his parents won’t let him read with his arm in a sewer, who then  _ grabs him by the collar and screams in his face _ . And then he goes to a festival and fucking dies. Sometimes he talks about it with his shrink. He leaves out the whole cannibalistic clown part, because that would get him stuffed into a straitjacket and put on the first train to  _ Crazyville _ . But he talks about the time he met a fan in a restaurant, and was having a shitty day and was meaner to him than he should’ve been. He talks about how a day later, the kid died in an accident. He talks about how the guilt keeps him up at night sometimes, and how if he knew, he would’ve been so fucking  _ nice _ , he would’ve bought him a round-trip ticket to Disneyland, just to get him out of Derry for the weekend. 

It’s a lot to think about for the short walk to their table. 

He stands there, staring at the table as Eddie sits down, haunted by how disappointed that kid must’ve been in every single adult  _ ever _ right before he died. 

“What, do you want me to pull your fucking chair out for you?” Eddie asks, his voice softer than his words, taking Richie’s hand and giving it a squeeze. His thumb rubs over Richie’s knuckles. “Sit down, babe.” 

And Richie does. 

Thoughts about dead kids and Chinese restaurants float away as he gets comfortable. He flips through the menu one-handed as the waiter brings over some fancy sparkling water and lemon wedges—just so he doesn’t have to let go of Eddie. And Eddie doesn’t seem to mind, because he keeps rubbing Richie’s knuckles and occasionally nudging him with his foot. 

“Hey, Eds, check this out.” Richie turns his menu to Eddie and points to the section labeled  _ Soupes _ . His chest shudders with the effort to keep his laughter in. “ _ Soupies. _ ” 

Eddie stares at him for a second like that’s the dumbest thing he’s ever said and that he can’t believe he said it. Then, he’s laughing—face red, shoulders shaking, hands rushing to his mouth to muffle a snort. Richie is used to hearing people laugh at his jokes—it’s what he  _ does _ —but Eddie’s laughter, his praise, has always hit different. 

“It’s funny, right?” Richie kicks lightly at Eddie’s shin to egg him on. “Sir, I’ll have your finest  _ soupies _ .”

“Stop.” Eddie punctuates his warning with a giggle. “This is a  _ nice restaurant _ .” 

Richie gives an aristocratic wave of his hand, and slips into one of his tired and true accents: the flamboyant British dandy, who enjoys the finer things in life and doesn’t know how much a loaf of bread costs. “Please,” he drawls, “Send my compliments to the chef, the  _ soupies _ were delightful.” 

Richie grins and pulls his menu back to take a look at the  _ soupies  _ this place has to offer. There are two. There’s a lentil soup with ham and seasonal vegetables that costs twenty bucks. He could get a can of lentil soup at Ralphs for mere  _ pocket change _ , and it would probably be just as good. The second soup is a  _ watermelon clam gazpacho _ , which is probably the nastiest idea for a soup Richie has ever heard of. Besides maybe like, that floating eyeball soup in  _ Indiana Jones _ . The menu also lists a  _ Soupe du Jour _ .

“Y’know…” Richie drags his foot up Eddie’s calf. It would be sexy if they were at home and he wasn’t wearing big clown shoes and probably dragging dirt up Eddie’s expensive trousers. He hopes it’s at least a  _ little _ enticing—but Eddie lifts his eyebrows and his forehead wrinkles and folds in a way that makes him look  _ old _ but also really cute. “I’m kinda chilly…” 

Eddie frets over his menu in mock disinterest, but he doesn’t jerk his leg away and shred into Richie about  _ dragging your shoes up my nice pants, asshole!  _ “Is that so?” 

He and Eddie have the East Coast in their blood, and even after moving out here decades ago, Richie finds it hard to be  _ cold  _ in California. Sure, sometimes the temperature dips below sixty and he totes around a leather jacket or wears a hoodie for comfort, but he’s never quite lost that protective layer of  _ Maine skin  _ that used to keep him warm in snowy winters and negative windchills. Eddie is no different, and the two of them love walking around downtown and not-so-quietly making fun of SoCal natives wearing winter jackets in the warmest January on record. 

“Mhm.” Richie taps his toe against Eddie’s leg rhythmically.  _ One, two, three, one, two, three, tap, tap, tap.  _ “I think I need a nice little appetizer to warm me up…” 

Eddie scrunches his lips whenever he’s trying to be serious. It’s not at all convincing, and it’s taking everything Richie has not to lean over the table and kiss him. “Do  _ not _ order soup just so you can say  _ soupies _ to the waiter,” he warns, but the glint in his eyes says  _ do it, you fucker. I dare you. _

Richie, never one to back down from a dare, shoots a roguish grin his way and eagerly tracks the waiter as he draws nearer to their table. 

“Good evening, gentlemen.” The waiter looks between them as he flips open his notepad. “I’m Jared”—Oh, of  _ course  _ his name is fucking  _ Jared _ , because he’s a white, conventionally attractive waiter at a fancy restaurant. (An old commercial for a jewelry chain flashes through Richie’s scattered mind;  _ “He went to Jared!” _ ) — “And I’ll be your server this evening. Can I start you off with something to drink?” 

Eddie always orders the wine, because Richie doesn’t know jack shit about wine, and Eddie always seems to know what he likes. He usually holds up the menu and points to what he wants—  _ “I’ll have a glass of the House Cabernet, yes, the 1922, thank you, and  _ **_he’ll_ ** _ have a glass of the Pinot Noir.”— _ and it gets Richie all hot and bothered whenever Eddie orders for him like that. He kind of hopes that he’ll do it again. 

Sure enough, Eddie leans over towards Jared, wine list in hand. “I think we’re going to split a bottle of champagne.” They didn’t discuss this, but Richie had champagne on his mind all day, and Eddie seems to be riding on the same wavelength. It shouldn’t be so hot that they’re able to understand each other, but it  _ is.  _ His foot finds Richie’s under the table and gives it a nudge. “Right?” 

“Oh. Uh.” Richie clears his throat and tugs at his collar because suddenly it’s very warm in here, and the corner of Eddie’s mouth gives a smug, secretive little curl. “Yeah, sure. Why not? It’s a—a  _ special occasion _ .” The best part is, Eddie has no clue just how special this occasion is going to be. This date is gonna go down in romance  _ history _ . He waves his hand vaguely. “Whatever you think is best—you’re the booze genius.” 

“Yeah.” Eddie straightens his back confidently. “I am.” He taps the wine list to draw Jared’s attention back to him. “The Ruinart Rosé, please—you’ll like this one, Rich, it tastes like strawberries.” 

“Uh-huh.” Richie nods along dumbly, because Eddie is pretty, and Eddie is smart, and right now, he’ll do just about anything Eddie says. “Sounds good.”

Strawberries are good. In the summers, when they were sun-kissed and freckled, Mom used to pick them wild strawberries from the garden, wash them thoroughly, and serve them with cool whip. Eddie always said he couldn’t eat anything that came from outside, and that made Richie want to feed them to him even more. Mom still has strawberries at her house in Santa Barbara.

Jared jots down their order. “Can I get you started on any appetizers this evening?” he asks, and Richie’s stomach does a little flip. It clenches and twists the same way it does before a show, or before telling a story that he knows will make everyone laugh. 

It’s his body’s way of telling him  _ it’s time to shine.  _

Richie opens his menu and gestures to it with a flourish, just to make sure Jared and Eddie are paying attention. Eddie’s foot nudges his under the table, a warning and encouragement all wrapped up in one. “Yeah, I was wondering about the  _ soupie  _ of the day?” 

Eddie drags a hand down his face to hide his smile. He kicks Richie in the shin, which,  _ ow _ , means that he’s accomplished his mission. 

Jared looks like he hears this bullshit all the time. He’s probably going to barely keep it together as he stalks off to the kitchen, and then slam his notepad down and tell the sous chef  _ you won’t fucking believe what this clown said to me!  _ **_Soupies!_ ** _ For the fifth fucking time this week! If someone says  _ **_soupies_ ** _ to me one more fucking time, I’m gonna show up with a sawed-off and blow all three Michelin stars to kingdom come!  _

He clears his throat and grimaces, and Richie would’ve felt bad if Eddie wasn’t red in the face from holding back laughter. 

“Our  _ soup  _ of the day is a poultry consommé with mirepoix, served with slices of grilled baguette and”— 

“Yeah, sounds great, thanks.” Richie claps his menu shut and sets it on the inside corner of the table for further consideration. It probably costs like, thirty bucks, and they’ll probably serve it in a cup small enough for a fucking  _ ant  _ to drink out of, but it’s worth it just to watch Eddie’s shoulders shake with silent giggles and to have an excuse to say the word  _ soupie  _ out loud. 

He’s at least polite enough to wait until Jared is out of earshot to start laughing. 

“You fucker!” Eddie kicks his shin again, smile wobbly like Jell-o, like Richie’s knees whenever Eddie laughs, or touches his back, or brushes his arm. “I can’t believe you said that.” He reaches over the table (not under, not secretly,  _ he wants people to  _ see) for Richie’s hand. “I can’t fucking stand you.” 

Richie gestures to Eddie’s chair, and the clear fact that Eddie is sitting down. “I mean…”

Eddie stands up. 

“Aw, come on.” Richie gives his arm a tug. “Don’t be like that, baby. Sit back down.”

Eddie squeezes his hand before withdrawing from Richie’s grip. “I’ll be right back, I just have to take a leak.” He raises an eyebrow. “Is that okay? Am I allowed to go  _ piss _ , Richard?” 

Richie gives a put upon sigh and slouches back in his chair. “I  _ guess _ …But make it snappy, or I’ll eat all the breadsticks without you.” 

“Don’t you fucking  _ dare _ .”

Eddie might love him. Hell, he loves him enough to live with him, and share a bed with him, and do his laundry; he loves him enough to take care of him when he’s sick, and he might even love him enough to marry him. But none of that compares to how much he loves  _ bread _ . 

If someone had Richie under lock and key and forbade him from enjoying a good bagel for like, twenty years, he’d probably be psycho about it too, so he flashes Eddie a smile and a pair of crossed fingers. 

He flips through his phone mindlessly as he waits for Eddie to come back. His knee bounces under the table and almost knocks over one of their water glasses, and his hand keeps coming to his inner coat pocket, just to make sure the ring is still there. He’s not sure where else it would go. It’s not like it can get up and walk away, right? 

Unless…

Richie checks again and sighs. All good. Now, it’s all about the timing—but it’s so hard to pick the right moment when  _ everything  _ Eddie does makes Richie want to take a knee (or two). Even as he watches Eddie return to their table, wringing his hands that he probably washed twice, Richie has to fight back the urge to shuffle onto the ground and say  _ I know you just pissed, but I want to spend the rest of my life with you and be so comfortable and domestic that we can piss with the door open—will you marry me?  _ Instead, he just picks up the basket of breadsticks and sets it down on Eddie’s side of the table. 

“I only took one—okay, two, but who can blame me?” Richie shrugs and gestures to the basket. “They’re  _ really  _ good breadsticks.” 

“Huh?” Eddie pulls out his chair, sits down, and scoots it up to the table. Cute. He stares down at the breadsticks like they’re gonna hand him a bottle of sugar pills and ask him to call them  _ mommy _ . “Oh. Thanks.” The winkles on his forehead scrunch further as he picks one up and takes a bite. 

Richie walks his fingers across the table and takes Eddie’s hand. “You okay?” he asks. “Did blood come out of the sink? Did a leper corner you by the urinals and offer you a beej? Did a giant hand emerge from the toilet and pinch your ass?” He gives Eddie a squeeze, hoping it’ll get him to smile, or at least roll his eyes—but he’s someplace else, somewhere that Richie can’t follow him to. It’s like he’s crawled back into his brain and made himself small, and he’s just standing in his empty skull trying to find the exit. Richie does the most logical, tender, and loving thing he can: he snaps his fingers in Eddie’s face and says “Yo. Earth to Spaghetti man.” 

Eddie blinks at him, and then he’s back to picking up his glass of water and wrinkling his nose as he sips. “Wow. You’re hilarious.  _ Hysterical _ .” There he is. Richie feels relieved and a little bit more in love than he was before. “No, Rich, Pennywise did not reach out of the toilet to grab my ass.”

“Good.” Richie barely dodges a light slap on the wrist from Eddie as he sneaks another breadstick. “‘Cause then I’d have to kill him again.” 

He tears the breadstick in half and offers part of it to Eddie, who takes it like it’s something more. It’s just a breadstick, but something about ripping it feels like communion. Just sitting here, sharing a meal with him, breaking bread, basking in his presence—it feels  _ holy _ . And people can say God hates gays all they want, and maybe it’s true. Richie wouldn’t know. He doesn’t really talk to God all that much—he doesn’t look up at the sky like Stan, eyes set and defiant, and asking  _ why _ . He doesn’t get on his knees like Bill, hands clasped and shaking, and asking  _ please _ . 

But sometimes his fingers brush Eddie’s like this, simple and pure, and he wonders if this is what religion is supposed to be like. 

Jared returns to their table with their champagne and Richie’s  _ soupie _ , jots down their dinner order and leaves. While they wait, the two of them make small-talk. They list off the most exciting parts of their days, followed by the most mundane. Richie rubs his thumb against the inside of Eddie’s wrist, and feeds him soup, and makes him smile. He compliments Eddie’s suit again, and tells him that he’s _ so _ smart and good at his job while he rests his cheek against his hand dreamily, and Eddie rubs his foot along Richie’s calf in a way that makes all his body hair stand on end and  _ quiver.  _

“Hey.” Eddie lifts his champagne flute, already half empty, and raises an eyebrow. “To us. Is that too corny?” 

Richie leans forward, drink in hand. “Oh, it’s  _ definitely  _ too corny—but let’s do it.” He reaches across the table and clinks their glasses together. “To us.”  _ For making it this far.  _ When Eddie’s hands grab at his tie to straighten it out for him, Richie’s pretty sure he goes a little cross-eyed. 

“It was crooked,” Eddie says. His hand lingers on Richie’s neck, right where his collar meets his skin, and Richie feels like there’s glitter exploding inside of him. “Can’t have you looking sloppy.” 

If Richie were bolder, braver, he’d stick his elbows on the table crane his neck forward, and give Eddie a big, wet smoocharoo right on the mouth. But he’s not, so he settles for setting his hand over Eddie’s and giving it a little rub. 

“What, you don’t want a sloppy bitch?” A wide smile yanks at his lips and he ducks his head down to avoid meeting Eddie’s eyes. His gaze is so fucking  _ bright  _ sometimes, and it burns to be caught in its orbit. 

“It wasn’t exactly a part of my master plan, but for you I’ll make an exception.” Eddie pats his cheek and withdraws his hand just in time for their dinner to arrive. 

Jared refills their champagne flutes with more fizzy, pink goodness. Richie watches the bubbles drift and pop against the inside walls of the glass, and can totally relate. He feels fizzy too, like he’s got bubbles inside him and he’s either gonna start burping like crazy or float up towards the ceiling. He cuts into his strip steak slowly, because each bite takes him closer to dessert, and to inevitably asking Eddie to marry him. 

Their oncoming engagement is a speeding truck in the middle of the night, and he’s a dopey little deer, twitter-pated and caught in the headlights. 

He and Eddie pick off each other’s plates, swapping steak and lobster. Richie’s fork travels from turf, to surf, and back to turf again, and he sucks down his champagne like a fish inhales water. 

“Slow down, Rich—Jesus, are we in a hurry?” Eddie asks, which is funny, because he’s been drinking at practically the same pace, and they’ve probably finished almost half the bottle by now. He leans back so Jared can take their plates. “Do you know what you want for dessert?” 

To be perfectly honest, Richie doesn’t really know what half the things on the dessert menu even  _ are _ . Some of them are easy, like chocolate lava cake and crème brûlée. He might have the distinguished palette of a thirteen year old, but he at least knows what  _ those  _ are. But then he sees phrases like  _ crème d’anjou _ and  _ tarte aux fruits de saison  _ and feels dumb and uncultured as  _ fuck _ . Mind boggled, he stares at the different options, trying to decide if he should be sexy and daring, or stay in his comfort zone. 

“Split a lava cake with me?” he finally asks, fluttering his eyelashes in Eddie’s general direction. They’re both selfish, greedy bastards, so  _ split it with me?  _ really means  _ take a picture of the cake with two spoons for the ‘gram, and then spend the rest of the night fighting with me over it?  _ “Or the cheesecake.” 

“How about I get the cheesecake,” Eddie offers, “And if you get the lava cake—and we do half of each.” They used to do that with their sandwiches when they were kids; Mrs. K always packed Eddie a turkey sandwich with lettuce and the crusts cut off and cut down the middle, and he’d slide half of it across the table in exchange for part of Richie’s diagonally-sliced PB and J. He’d have to brush his teeth after, so Sonia didn’t smell peanuts on his breath when he got home and have a fucking conniption. 

Richie shrugs and takes another swig of champagne. It tastes better with every sip, and it was pretty damn good to begin with. “Works for me. Yeah, let’s do that.” 

Eddie makes a weird kind of eye contact with their waiter—one that he’s probably hoping that Richie won’t notice—when he says “And some more champagne, please.” 

“Dude, are you trying to get me drunk?” Richie smiles a wolfish smile and winks at his boyfriend just to get him flustered. “How many times do I have to tell you—even if I’m stone sober, I’m gonna put out.” 

Eddie, flushed red up to his ears and scowling, kicks him from under the table. “We’re  _ celebrating, _ asshole,” he hisses, “Plus, we paid for the whole bottle so we might as well drink it.” 

They’re not celebrating a workplace promotion, or a recent divorce, or a new relationship. Or maybe, they’re celebrating all of that at once as their relationship inches towards the end of its first year. Maybe they’re celebrating everything all at once, or maybe they just decided to dress up and go to a fancy restaurant and drink French champagne while playing footsie under the table just  _ because _ . 

Or, Eddie has gotten wise and figured out that Richie plans to knock his socks off with an all-star proposal tonight. 

Richie raises his champagne flute tipsily. He’s not drunk, but he feels  _ good _ . “Wise words, Eduardo, my man. Always so economical. And who am I to turn down good booze?” Before Eddie moved in and started keeping the books, Richie had no idea what his financial situation even  _ looked _ like. He could’ve been thousands in debt and never known it, ‘cause he was too damn chicken to look. “Okay, we’ll do an order of the cheesecake and the lava cake, with some more bubbly.” 

He has to be careful for the rest of the night and drink in moderation. Even if he slurs his words and crosses eyes, and stumbles and drools through a messy proposal, Richie is almost convinced that Eddie will say yes. But still, he wants to keep his wits about him just enough to  _ not  _ make a jackass out of himself in front of a bunch of strangers, Jared, and the love of his fucking life. He slows down his sips as they wait for dessert to arrive.

Eddie curls his hand around the crook of Richie’s elbow. “Hey.” 

“Hey.” Richie sets his hand on top of Eddie’s and curls his fingers around it. It’ll look real good with his ring on it. His eyes flicked down to Eddie’s lips, thin and pink and a little slick from the champagne. They probably taste sticky and sweet, like strawberries and cream on the back porch. But they’re tight, bunched up just a little at the center. Richie rubs his thumb over the top of his hand.“What’s on your mind, Eddie Spaghetti?” 

The truth starts to peek out from behind Eddie’s eyes, like he’s opening a door—but just a crack. It steps forward with skittish kitten paws and Richie watches it carefully, not to pin it down, but to coax it out. 

It catches his gaze and darts back in, and the door swings shut. 

“Nothing.” Eddie layers another hand over Richie’s, and Richie puts his free hand on top of it in a full pile-up. “My head’s about as empty right now as yours is all the time.” He should be insulted by it, really, but it’s hard to even pretend to be offended when he has Eddie’s hands sandwiched between his, and he’s staring into those brown eyes that used to keep him up at night. 

“God, that’s hot.” Richie shoots him a wink. “I love dumb guys. I’m moron-for-moron. We should go out on a date sometime.” 

Eddie grimaces, but he doesn’t pull his hands away. “See, about that…” He sucks a rueful breath in through his teeth. “I…kind of have a boyfriend, and I’m crazy in love with him, so…” 

Oh, what a disappointment.! What a tragedy! Richie sighs and shakes his head. “I should’ve known,” he mutters, sniffling, “The cute ones are always gay!” He pulls his hand away from Eddie’s and covers his face. “This is so embarrassing…” Hesitantly, Richie peeks out from behind his hand. Eddie’s smile is like a zipper about to burst. They make eye contact, and immediately burst out laughing. 

They just can’t help themselves around each other. They can’t help fighting, they can’t help laughing, they can’t help sloppily making out if they’re left alone for too long. Richie misses Eddie whenever they’re not in the same room, even if he just got up to grab a glass of wine or take a leak; he’s sure it would be weird and obsessive if he didn’t know that Eddie felt the same way. Who knew that codependence could be so romantic? 

“You’re a real jackass,” Eddie says. His cheeks are pink from the laughing, and from the flirting, and from the drinking. 

“Maybe your insults would hurt a little more if you weren’t so damn cute.” Richie tilts his champagne flute sloppily towards Eddie. “And if you actually meant them.” 

Eddie’s foot finds Richie’s, and he taps Richie’s ankle with his toe. “I  _ do  _ mean them.” He snorts and takes another breezy sip of champagne. “Every time. You’re a jackass, and a dickwad, and you’re my boyfriend and I’m crazy in love with you.” 

He says the last part like it’s the final dig at the end of a harsh fight. Something that says  _ this isn’t over, but I need a break _ . That’s just how it goes with Eddie, isn’t it?  _ Fuck you, I love you more than anything.  _ The two of them play cat and mouse with their words, constantly trying to outdo each other like Tom and Jerry, and they both so  _ desperately  _ want to be trapped in one of the other’s scheme. They’re pretty cartoonish in the way they love each other, competitive and campy, but also enduring and classic. 

“I’m in love with you too!” Richie all but lunges across the table to grab for Eddie’s hand. The suddenness of it startles them both, but once Eddie relaxes, he slips his fingers between Richie’s and  _ gazes _ at him like his eyeballs are gonna get all wobbly and melt into rainbow candy hearts. “I’m in love with you,” Richie says again, softer and with more conviction this time, “I love you so fucking much that I don’t know what to do with myself sometimes, and it drives me so fucking  _ crazy  _ sometimes.” His free hand slips into his jacket, searching for the ring box in the innermost pocket. “And that’s why I need to”-- 

“Ready for dessert, gentlemen?” 

Seriously, Jared?  _ Now?!  _ Richie drops his hand ad glares up at Jared’s young, conventionally attractive face. He looks like a Jared--and that’s nothing against Jareds! There’s probably some great Jareds out there, who vote democrat and drink from metal straws and never smoke in public. And maybe once he sheds the apron and the tie, this Jared is one of them, but he sure as fuck isn’t one  _ now. _

Eddie drops Richie’s hand and leans back into his chair--and that makes him hate Jared just a little bit more. 

But then he sets a plate of warm, gooey looking chocolate cake in front of Richie, and all is forgiven. He has all night to pop the question, but this puppy is only going to be at peak moltenness for so long. Richie makes a grab for it, fork out and ready to attack, when Eddie gives his shin a little kick. 

“Don’t you want to wait for the champagne?” he asks when he notices Richie’s confused stare. His eyes flicker up towards Jared almost anxiously, and he watches him like a hawk even as he continues talking to Richie. “I really think you should  _ wait  _ for the  _ champagne _ .” 

Jared nods and pulls the half-empty bottle from the ice bucket. “I agree, sir.” He stretches over Richie’s glass and tilts the neck of the bottle forward. Translucent champagne tumbles into the glass with a hearty series of glugs and fizzes. “The cake really, uh, tastes better after a sip of the Ruinart.” 

If Richie wasn’t too busy staring at Eddie and trying to figure out the caged, jumpy look on his face, maybe he would’ve heard the  _ plink  _ of something metal and small splashing into the champagne flute. Maybe he would’ve looked down and seen it, catching the light and collecting bubbles, and the remainder of the evening would’ve gone differently. Maybe all of this could’ve been avoided if he’d paid attention to something besides Eddie fucking Kaspbrak for once in his goddamn life. 

Unfortunately, the forces that be aren’t fans of giving these two a break. 

The desserts are out, the champagne has poured, and it’s now or never. If he doesn’t do it now, he’s going to pussy out, and lay in bed all night staring at the ceiling and  _ kicking  _ himself. His heart is pounding cracks into his ribcage, the words boiling up inside of him like molten lava, and he  _ has  _ to do it. He  _ has  _ to ask. If he doesn’t, he’ll fucking explode, and he’s already shaking from the nerves and the mounting pressure. Richie looks down at his hands, watches his fingers tremble.  _ Your hands are shaking, Rich _ . 

That’s what Steve said, the day Mike called. 

The day Richie remembered. 

The day he stood there in front of a crowd and forgot a joke he hadn’t even  _ written _ , all while a cacophony of memories he didn’t even recall forgetting chased each other in cartoonish circles around his empty skull.  _ Beep beep, Richie.  _ **_Fucking Queer!_ ** _ Shut up!  _ **_Do not fucking touch me!_ **

The first thing he remembered was Eddie--short and chubby cheeked and always red in the face from yelling at Richie about nothing, and everything, and nothing at all. Eddie, who used to buy Richie ice cream and squeeze in next to him in a hammock. Eddie, who once climbed on top of Richie in the quarry and stuck his head under the water, all bark and no bite, but Richie would’ve let him drown him just so he could feel his fucking touch. 

Eddie, who is looking at him right now from across the table, glancing down at their champagne flutes like he’s got something to say. He’s got the puppydog eyes on, the ones that Richie falls for every fucking time, and if he doesn’t get some liquid courage in him and pop the question  _ right fucking now _ , he’s going to erupt and splatter his guts all over this restaurant. 

Richie takes a deep breath, grabs his glass by the stem, and throws the whole fucking thing back like a shot. 

And that’s when Eddie scrambles to his feet, grabs at Richie from across the table, and screams-- 

“ **_NO!_ ** ” 

Now, there’s something very  _ William Denbrough  _ about seeing your beloved in a three piece suit screaming  **_NO_ ** mere seconds before you propose. It’s eerie, it’s bone chilling, and the shock of it has Richie breathless. 

Wait, no--it’s whatever the fuck is lodged in his windpipe that has him breathless. 

Richie grabs at his throat, tries to ask  _ what the fuck is going on? _ but only musters a muffled “ _ Hnghk?! _ ” He gasps, a fish out of water, a big fat homo choking to death in a fancy restaurant, and there’s a  _ fucking joke in here somewhere _ , but he’s too busy trying not to  _ die _ to find it. 

Eddie’s eyes are wide and panicked, and he’s frozen in his seat, pressed against the back of it like it’s the wall in the kitchen at Neibolt-- _ please don’t be mad, Bill, I was just scared _ . Richie reaches out for him with frantic hands, trying to console him but also snap him the fuck into action because he’s fucking  _ choking _ and, hey, were those little black spots always there in the corners of his peripheral, or is he just nearing death? How long does it take for someone to die from this? Richie’s lungs leap around in his chest, diaphragm pumping wildly in an attempt to push out whatever the  _ fuck  _ is inside him. His arm flings out and the glasses of champagne clatter to the floor and shatter. Aw, nuts, those were probably expensive. Where’s his lawyer and his will when he needs them?  _ And to La Boucherie, I bequeath ten thousand fat ones to cover the broken champagne flutes and therapy for all the employees and guests.  _

The clatter seems to snap Eddie out of whatever PTSD brain-freeze he found himself in, because next thing Richie knows, Eddie is pressed to his back with his arms around Richie’s torso and not in a fun, sexy way. His mouth is running, the words falling out of them like blood or black ooze ( _ “Wanna play loogie?” _ and oh, that’s not what Richie wants to be thinking about while he’s choking to death in the middle of a restaurant filled with affluent millennials). Richie can barely hear them.

He’s drowning, drifting down, down, down and the black spots in his vision grow into blotches as Eddie’s fists pound against his gut and his voice shouts in his ear. 

“Come on, Rich,  _ come fucking on _ ! Holy shit, I’m so fucking sorry!  **_SOMEONE FUCKING HELP ME, HE’S FUCKING CHOKING!_ ** ” 

Activity flurries around him as his guts squirm inside his middle aged, eczema riddled skin. Patrons gasp and shout, cameras click (seriously? What the fuck, America?), and the pressure inside him builds and builds as Eddie squeezes and punches at the squishy, sensitive spot underneath his ribcage. 

_ “Oh my God! Someone call an ambulance!”  _

He’s dizzy. So, so dizzy. 

_ “Is that Richie Tozier? Like, the comedian?”  _

_ “The gay one? Yeah, I think so…”  _

Ah, so that’s what he’ll be known for. The gay funnyman whose pomeranian’s Instagram was verified before his. 

_ “I’ve got Good Samaritan on the line! They’re five minutes away!”  _

His legs are like jelly, and it hurts to lift his arms. He’s not going to last five minutes. He’s going to die here, in a fucking bougie penthouse lounge with leather seats and black marble tables, and a stunning view of the Los Angeles skyline. It really is so fucking pretty. 

_ “My mom’s a doctor! She’s in the bathroom, I’ll get her!”  _

_ “Daddy, is that man going to die?”  _

Yes, Johnny, that man is going to die--and you’re going to be traumatized for life. You’re going to repress this memory and carry it around forever, but always be wary of expensive restaurants, and molten lava cake, and champagne. God, Richie can’t go into a restaurant without traumatizing a fucking child, can he? 

The voices blend together like a terrified smoothie in his ears, interrupted by his sharp gags and grunts. His hand scrambles over Eddie’s arm. His biceps strain around Richie’s stomach, which would be kind of hot if he wasn’t dying. Richie gives him a reassuring squeeze, just like when he patted his cheek in the cistern, the two of them dripping with greywater and smelling like piss, shit, and blood.  _ You’re braver than you think _ , he told Eddie, but both of them are scared fucking shitless. 

Richie was never good at being brave. He spent so long hiding in the back of a  _ Very Scary  _ closet amongst mothballs and clothes that didn’t fit him anymore. The scariest thing he could think of when he was thirteen was that stupid Paul Bunyan statue, a caricature of masculinity, of everything Richie couldn’t be and everything he tried not to think about while laying alone in his rickety twin bed way past bedtime. It had chased him with a giant phallic object, holding it stiff and erect as it ran, waiting until he tripped and landed flat on his stomach or back, so it could stab him clean through his middle. 

So it could  _ penetrate _ him. 

He was scared of people looking at him, looking  _ through _ him and seeing what he was. 

Well, people were looking at him now. 

Eddie struggled to speak as he punched again at Richie’s stomach, breath hot and wet as he stammered into his ear. “You’re gonna be okay--I’ve got you, you’re gonna be okay, just fucking  _ spit it out!”  _

He forces his fists a little lower, right against Richie’s stomach, where he gorged on steak and fancy mashed potatoes, and the chef’s finest  _ soupies _ , and--

“ _ Hnnghghkk!!”  _

Okay, that’s a new feeling. Not new--he’s felt it tons of time, usually a couple of times a week--but it’s new to right now. It’s the feeling of everything he’s eaten today starting to push its way back up. Richie squeezes his eyes shut and tries to focus on the feeling, tries to chase it and catch it and  _ amplify  _ it. _ Think about gross things _ , he tells himself,  _ Mrs. K on the toilet. Mrs. K naked. Mrs. K naked and on the toilet.  _ He tries to think of the worst things imaginable, of the way Henry Bowers’ body thumped to the floor of the library, eyes wide open in shock and rage, of Betty Ripsom’s disembodied waist as it skipped towards them, blood spurting around the exposed notches of her spine. Eddie squeezes tighter and tighter, punches harder and harder, and Richie feels sicker and sicker. 

It’s Bev that gets him in the end. 

His brain scrambles for oxygen and instead it grabs a memory. He remembers Bev standing in his doorway in the middle of the night, raindrops sliding along her bruised arms, her entire body rattling like a bag of Kraft Shake n’ Bake. Her skin was wet and shiny with tears and rain and sweat. A purple bruise was blooming on her jaw. She held her arms around her middle and asked to come inside. 

Mom gave her a nightgown to wear and a bag of frozen peas for her face. Dad, fists clenched and face red, gave Richie the key to the locked cabinet in his study and told him to hide it, and then went for a long walk without an umbrella. He kept his gun in that cabinet, and never let anyone touch the key. He pressed it into Richie’s hand with something in his eyes that he’d never seen, and he didn’t need to explain. Richie already knew. 

If Wentworth Tozier had been given access to that gun, he would’ve driven across town at two in the morning and shot Alvin Marsh dead in the doorway. 

Richie sat on his bed while Bev showered, turning the key over and over in his hands. 

He remembers the door opening so loudly and suddenly that it could’ve shaken the world apart. She stood there, hair dripping and eyes wide and panicked like a deer caught in deadlights, fist clenched around something white and bloody. 

_ “Richie, I...Can you get a pair of underwear from your mom?”  _

He remembers the confusion first. 

_ “Wait...didn’t you like,  _ **_just_ ** _ have your period?”  _

Then the anger. 

_ “I...Just get them for me.  _ **_Please_ ** _.”  _

Then, he remembers feeling the  _ rage _ , so powerful and blinding that he was sick with it. 

And just like that, the memory of a bruise and a pair of bloody underwear pushes his dinner out of his stomach and up towards his throat. His guts turn themselves inside out and give a mighty  _ shove _ just as Eddie squeezes at him, and--

Well. 

Let’s just say that whatever  _ was  _ lodged in his throat...isn’t anymore. 

It’s not a pretty picture, and it’ll be all over the Twittersphere by morning.

Richie’s entire body flops over Eddie’s arms as he projectile pukes onto a really delicious, really  _ expensive  _ molten chocolate lava cake. He either pukes for two seconds, or two minutes, or two hours--it’s hard to tell, and it keeps  _ coming _ , barely giving him a chance to gasp for breath in between rounds. 

Finally, much to the relief and horror of everyone in the restaurant, it ends. Richie gives one last, futile little gag and shakily wipes at the back of his mouth. A string of sour tasting saliva hangs from his chin, but he’s too busy panting for breath to care. 

“It’s okay,” Eddie whispers in his ear, hands migrating to his chest, over his rapidly thumping heart, “Just breathe with me, Rich, I’ve got you.” 

Ha. Funny how the tables--

Urp. Nope. Richie’s legs go weak as he throws up again. How the fuck is there anything left. He feels slimy, and weak, and sick, and he’s pretty sure he’s ruined his nice suit and brand new Gucci lace-up shoes, and everyone’s fucking night. His knees wobble and his entire body lurches forward. 

He doesn’t realize he’s falling until his head whacks the corner of the marble table, slick with his vomit.

_ Gross _ , he thinks, and then everything goes black. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hi! if you struggle with emetephobia, here is a synopsis of what you missed: 
> 
> eddie and richie had a lovely dinner. eddie asked the waiter to put the ring in the champange. richie, as soon as he sees the champagne, takes a huge swig to give himself the courage to propose to eddie himself. he chokes on the ring, and eddie gives him the heimlich, and...uh...well, the ring comes out. then, richie gets dizzy, slams his head on the table, and passes out. and that's what you missed on glee! :)


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hello, everyone!! 
> 
> although for some reason i marked this as having 6 chapters, it actually only has five, and our journey has come to an end. i'm very proud of myself, because my adhd is so awful that i've never been able to post a COMPLETELY finished multichapter fic! i feel very accomplished :') and i hope it was worth the wait! 
> 
> thank you to everyone who left kudos and comments! i love you xo

Eddie Kaspbrak has a rolodex of commonly uttered phrases inside his mind. 

Each corner of his brain is meticulously organized, and he spends fifteen minutes a day meditating on the living room floor to organize the clutter. The mess builds up quickly, thoughts flying through him like tornados, brain moving faster than his mouth. It’s like following a child carrying a leaky sippy cup; he’s constantly chasing after his own thoughts, cleaning up after them. Each time he thinks he’s done, there’s a new mess to attend to. 

But the only thing that remains untouched is his age-old rolodex, his rotating collection of polite greetings and sharp witticisms. (Except they’re not that sharp because he’s not a fucking wordsmith. He didn’t spend his childhood weaving stories or writing secret, secluded love poems that he never wanted to be credited for, and the smartest thing he can say most of the time is  _ what’s so fucking funny, dickwad? _ ) 

One of the most common phrases in his revolving deck of catphrase cards is  _ oh my God, I’m going to kill Richie.  _ Sometimes he says it out of frustration, hissing it at a coworker as he opens his hand-packed lunch and finds, instead of a lovingly prepared sandwich, a large purple eggplant wearing a bow and a post-it note that reads  _ Tonight? ;)  _ in Richie’s incomprehensible chicken-scratch. Sometimes he says it with fondness as he reads a verified tweet from  _ @Trashmouth _ that reveals personal information about him that is both humiliating and hilarious. 

And sometimes, he thinks it, eyes wide in horror and jaw agape, as he watches Richie’s limp body drop to the ground into a puddle of his own puke. 

_ Oh my God.  _ Is he screaming? He might be screaming.  _ I’m going to kill Richie.  _

He fell to the ground so quickly, like he was filled with cement and there was no life in him, and Eddie scrambles to his side. He doesn’t care about the vomit dripping over the back of the table, or the little gold ring that flew out of Richie’s windpipe and landed on the floor when he finally erupted-- _ stupid, stupid! You’re so stupid, Eddie. A ring in the champagne? Why didn’t you just get on one knee and whip it out like a  _ **_man?!_ ** He gathers Richie’s face in his hands and gives him a shake. 

“Rich! Come on, honey”-- Eddie pats his cheek to try and tap some life into him, but there’s nothing- It feels all too familiar, kneeling over Richie like this and trying whatever he can to wake him up again. It’s real fucking poetic, and the irony of it makes Eddie feel sick to his stomach. 

Richie’s chest is shuddering like--like  _ shutters _ , Eddie guesses, old shutters on an old window during a hurricane, but at least he’s  _ breathing.  _

A woman from a nearby table kneels down next to him. Her hot pink cocktail dress bunches up around her thighs, and Eddie doesn’t know why he’s staring at her legs, but he is. It’s better than staring at the vomit, or at Richie’s empty face, or the ring sitting on the table. 

“It’s okay--I’m a doctor, and there’s an ambulance on the way.” Her blonde hair brushes Richie’s cheeks as she bends over him, and she could be talking to Eddie, but he can’t process what the words mean fast enough to say anything back. He just sits back on his haunches, hands folded over his face in silent terror, and lets her work. 

His hands shield over his eyes. He’d rather stare at his own fingers than see Richie like this. Part of him is waiting for Richie to wake up, and part of him is still waiting for the  _ claw _ . 

He can still feel it inside him sometimes, tearing at his guts and pushing them around and then  _ pulling  _ on them as that stupid fucking clown waved him around like a lighter at a fucking Neil Diamond concert. He usually wakes up from the feeling in soft cotton sheets, gasping for his inhaler--he didn’t need it, he wasn’t supposed to need it--until Richie presses it into his hands and rubs his back as plastic and compressed air teach him how to breathe again. 

He scrambles for his inhaler now, fumbling it between his hands for a good few seconds before finally taking a puff. 

“Are you okay?” asks the woman in the pink dress, her blue eyes finding his. He nods jerkily around his inhaler because even if he’s terrible at everything else (like proposing), he’s good at complying with doctors.  _ Yes, doctor. No, doctor. I can’t speak to you without my mommy present, doctor.  _ She rubs his shoulder, but her touch is lighter than Richie’s. “He’s fine. He probably just has a concussion.” A concussion. He’s not dead. Eddie didn’t kill him. That’s not something he should even have to reassure himself of, but the universe is absolute shit at giving him a fucking  _ break.  _ “I think he’s coming to.” She gives him a gentle nudge in Richie’s direction. “He’s going to be really confused, so try being as calm with him as you can.”

As if on cue, which is hilarious because he’s never on time for  _ anything _ , Richie starts to groan and squirm, throwing an arm over his eyes to block out the light. He opens his dry mouth and, very eloquently, asks, “ _ Whazzafuckisnappening? _ ” And Eddie could just about cry from relief, and maybe he does. 

Eddie lunges down on top of him, hands cupping the back of Richie’s head to keep it off the ground. “Oh my fucking god,” he whispers wetly as he buries his face into Richie’s neck. He gives a feeble sniffle, “I thought you died!” So much for calm--but  _ you  _ try being calm after watching the love of your life drop to the floor in a crumpled heap for the second time in two years! He shuffles back onto his knees and lovingly wipes a smudge of vomit from Richie’s chin. It’s grosser than he expected, but Eddie can’t bring himself to mind. “You okay?” 

Richie goes a little cross-eyed. “Wha’ happened?” he asks dumbly. Then, he wrinkles his nose. “Smells like someone puked in here.” 

“ _ You  _ puked in here.” Eddie holds up two fingers as Richie scoots up into a slouched seat. “How many fingers am I holding up?” 

Richie stares at his hand for a second. Then, he leans forward and kisses his palm. “Can’t tell.” 

“That’s because you gave yourself a concussion, you moron.” Eddie pats his cheek. “And traumatized literally everyone in here because I can’t take you fucking  _ anywhere _ .” 

“Can you stop being mean to me?” Richie whines, nuzzling his cheek against Eddie’s hand, “I almost died.” And Eddie can’t argue with that, so he brushes the matted hair from Richie’s forehead. A huge gash cuts across Richie’s brow, dripping blood onto the bridge of his nose. He must gasp, or wince, because Richie twists his face up and asks, “Is it bad?” 

Eddie drops his hand and tries not to think about the blood on his fingertips. “You’ll survive, but…” He gestures behind him to the table--the puke, the shattered champagne glasses, and the ruined cakes. “I’m not too sure about dessert.” 

Richie sighs and attempts to cover his face--wrenching his hand back when he accidentally smacks his own injury. “Fuck, man...That was like, three hundred bucks worth of food.” 

Two EMTs, hauling a gurney alongside them, bustle into the restaurant, which reminds Eddie that there are other people in here. It’s so easy to get so absorbed in  _ Richie, _ for Eddie to attune all of his cells to his every breath, his every blink, that sometimes the rest of the world falls away. 

And god, the rest of the world looks pale and horrified right now. 

Richie waves as they load him up onto the stretcher and roll him out. 

“You’ve been a great audience, folks! Tip your waiters!”

Eddie follows along the gurney with his hand over his face, and the engagement ring wrapped up in a napkin--and makes a mental note to send the doctor in the pretty pink dress a  _ very _ generous Edible Arrangement. 

The next morning, he and Richie will sip shitty hospital coffee as they watch the news on a small TV that makes everything look grainy. Richie will have stitches on his forehead, and the hosts of Good Morning America will warn audiences that the following footage may be disturbing. A blurry video, ripped from some teenager’s Instagram live with the headline  _ RICHIE TOZIER NEARLY CHOKES AT LOS ANGELES RESTAURANT DURING DATE  _ will play across the screen and make Richie laugh until he hurts the rib that Eddie broke while helplessly trying to give him the heimlich. He’ll hold his hand up to the too-bright fluorescent lights, showing off the ring that Eddie cleaned and polished in the bathroom, snap a picture for Twitter, and jot down a quick caption. 

_ I said yes!!!  _


End file.
